


together

by badacts



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-08-07 19:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 40,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7727215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of filled prompts from my tumblr. Or, things go wrong in a variety of ways and then are fixed by the power of an established and stable relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kevin is a Dick, Andrew is Protective

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't new stuff if you follow me on tumblr, I'm just organising. YEAH I picked the title to match my short fic title aesthetic. 
> 
> Prompt: 'Love, could you write something about Andrew defending / speaking up for Neil when he thinks Neil isn't around but of course Neil is always as close as he can and hears how proud Andrew is / or things Andrew notices .... '

Andrew didn’t have many strong opinions about Kevin Day anymore, but he was beginning to get irritated by his annoying fucking voice.

The body armour Exy players wore protected them from the major damage that the ball could do, but it didn’t mitigate the pain much. Kevin yelped when it hit him right between the shoulder blades, spinning on his heels to find the perpetrator. Andrew was right there waiting to be seen. He couldn’t make out Kevin’s expression from here, but he could imagine it.

“You’re pissing me off,” Andrew informed him, probably only just loud enough to be audible.

Neil scooped up the ball and passed it back down the court. He seemed puzzled by the interruption, but he would; he liked to think that Kevin’s rants about his many and varied failures were a key to his success, rather than making an already hard game harder. Andrew didn’t have time tonight for much beyond guarding his goal, what with the Lion strikers pushing defence so hard, but he’d seen the way Neil’s game was getting worse rather than better after repeated lashings of Kevin’s tongue.

Kevin gestured to his face, and then waved an uncaring hand at Andrew when he didn’t respond at all. He did, however, turn to the game and stop talking. Neil threw Andrew another glance but didn’t come over.

That they ended the game a point ahead was a miracle. That everyone was too tired to celebrate was even more so. Andrew, who wouldn’t have gone anyway, wasted no time in changing out and driving his lot back to the dorm in exhausted silence.

Neil only stopped long enough in the suite to filch the pack of cigarettes off of Andrew’s desk before he left. That was convenient, because it gave Andrew the opportunity to corner Kevin in the bedroom.

“I’m going to have a bruise, asshole,” Kevin greeted him as he tried to look at his own back over his shoulder. Andrew ignored him in favour of throwing his bag down by Neil’s bed. “What the hell is your problem?”

“You’re pissing me off,” Andrew repeated. “I’m tired of listening to you talk shit.”

Kevin looked almost laughably offended at that. “What – to Neil? If he can’t take criticism, he shouldn’t have taken up the captaincy.”

“I’m not an expert on how teams work, but I don’t think a prerequisite for being a captain is getting your head bitten off three times a day.”

“The freshmen aren’t on their game, and neither is Nicky,” Kevin said. “They’re letting the entire side down with their personal problems.”

Andrew didn’t know or care what issues the newbies were having, but he knew that Nicky’s problem was Eric. It wasn’t serious; Nicky was worried that Eric was lying about things, but Eric was only lying about his plans for Easter. He was coming to spend the week with Nicky, and he’d called Aaron to find out whether it was feasible or not.

“None of those things are in Neil’s control,” Andrew pointed out.

“It’s his job to make sure that they’re under control,” Kevin retaliated. “We can’t win if they won’t play properly.”

“Not everyone is like you. They can’t all thrive off of obsession,” Andrew replied, injecting pure derision into his voice. Truthfully, he was tired too. He knew that Neil wanted their final year with the Foxes to end up with another championship win before they graduated and left him behind, but they’d been pushed hard through all of the championship rounds up to semi-finals. The Foxes were built for this even with a larger side, but the cracks were certainly starting to show.

“You think you can do better?” Andrew asked, his voice taking on a taunting edge. “We both know you can’t. He’s the best shot we have, and he does a good job considering.”

“It’s not good enough if we aren’t winning,” Kevin snapped back.

“We did win,” Andrew replied, unimpressed. “If that somehow isn’t good enough for your insane expectations, then you might need to accept that. Just don’t take it out on him.”

A knock at the door interrupted Kevin’s imminent explosion. “If you guys are done talking about me, can I come in?”

Neil didn’t wait for a reply. His expression was also unimpressed, but his eyes went directly to Andrew.

Everything Andrew had said was the truth. He hadn’t got this far by lying to himself, and he wouldn’t backtrack just because his words had reached ears they weren’t necessarily intended for. He shot Kevin one last warning look before he left, brushing Neil in the doorway on the way past.

He’d barely dropped into one of the beanbag chairs when Neil re-emerged and dropped to the floor next to him. “That was nice.”

Andrew felt his teeth clench and consciously relaxed his jaw. “Don’t get used to it.”

“No, I meant that you actually scared Kevin into apologising with that glare,” Neil replied. “Or, Kevin’s version of apologising. Some kind of rant about improving ourselves. I left before he could finish.”

 _Typical_. “He’s going to hold that against you for the next decade, you know.”

Neil shrugged, lying back so he could pillow his head on the six inches of chair by Andrew’s hip. “Yeah, that and everything else. You don’t need to stick up for me though.”

“You don’t do as well when you’re criticised as you think you do,” Andrew said, pointedly ignoring the way Neil looked at him. He was so – soft, sometimes, that Andrew could barely stand it.

“Yeah,” Neil acknowledged. “Hey. Yes or no?”

His hand was hovering over Andrew’s where it lay relaxed at his side. “Yes.”

Neil folded it between his palms and examined it like he’d find the answer to all his secrets there. “Good aim, by the way.”

Andrew, very quietly, snorted.


	2. Not Going Anywhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 13\. “Did you really think I’d leave?”

Neil wiped his sweaty face on his sweatier shirt as he got out of the elevator and made for the suite door. It was boiling hot outside, and he’d been pushing himself hard.

It’d been a long day. They’d woken to Wymack’s call telling them to turn the TV on, where a former Raven had been spilling everything there was to know about Riko Moriyama on a morning talk show. Kevin had watched it white-faced and silent, but Andrew had made them turn it off before anything about Neil had been said.

Wymack showed up to tell Neil he was excused from classes because the press would be everywhere today, and he took Kevin with him when he left. Andrew, who’d been given a warning that he needed to show his face in class or face the consequences, had gone and left Neil with the suite to himself.

With nothing to occupy him, he’d logged onto the internet and spent an hour or two searching through news articles and social media until he knew the full extent of the damage. He’d gotten off lightly, for once; Jean and Kevin hadn’t been so lucky.

Then it’d been one o’clock and Neil couldn’t sit still any longer. He decided to leave the Tower for a run, even though he knew the parking lot would have a clump of reporters waiting to catch someone on the Exy line returning from class.

The reporters were looking for Neil Josten, sharp-tongued and resplendent in orange. They hadn’t looked twice at Neil as he’d jogged straight past them wearing a cap of Andrew’s, with his hood pulled up over his distinctive hair. As soon as he was out of sight he took off at a bolt, and he hadn’t bothered to look at this watch until he was in the elevator.

Now it was 3PM and Andrew was silhouetted against the window in his usual perch when Neil let himself in. He wasn’t smoking, though, even though he had the window open. He was looking at something else in his right hand instead.

He lobbed whatever it was straight at Neil, so it bounced off his chest and across the carpet. He didn’t hold back, either; Neil would have a bruise on his sternum. “Did you know they invented this thing which allows you to be contacted by people who were wondering if you might be fucking dead?”

It was, of course, his cell phone. Thankfully he still had the one that Nicky referred to almost affectionately as a ‘dinosaur’, because a smart phone might not have survived that throw quite so well.

Andrew was angry, visibly so. Neil knew better than to say that he was fine.

“I don’t have pockets,” Neil said, gesturing to himself. It was true, but Andrew’s expression didn’t change.

“I’m sick of you pretending that being contactable is such an inconvenience to you,” he gritted out. “This isn’t an issue I’m willing to pander to you on. I thought I made that clear.”

“I don’t…” Neil started, and then, “Why were you trying to get a hold of me anyway. Is everyone alright?”

He maintained that his captaincy was about making the Foxes a functional and successful team on the court, and that it had nothing to do with managing the personal lives of his players. That was what he said, anyway; in reality, he stepped in occasionally with his particular brand of brisk practicality to deal with things before they could become serious issues.

If he experienced the odd bout of sentimentality over his younger players, then he was the only one who really knew about it.

The only one other than Andrew, anyway, whose mouth was currently twisted into a snarl. “I don’t care about those little brats.”

Neil opened his mouth to ask after their lot and then rewound back to the beginning of the conversation. “Did you think something had happened to me?”

Andrew didn’t answer, which was an answer in and of itself.

“I went for a run,” Neil said, his voice gentling despite the razor-blade expression Andrew was still wearing. It didn’t necessarily pay to bare soft spots when Andrew was like this, but Neil had always had good results from doing it himself. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“You’re a runner,” Andrew replied stiffly.

“Yeah,” Neil said. “Did you really think I’d leave? Because some idiot can’t keep his mouth shut?”

“He isn’t the only one,” Andrew commented, which meant _I wondered for a second_. And, _you made me question you_. Which explained the anger.

He wouldn’t have said that if he wasn’t already softening, though. Neil scooped up his phone on the way to Andrew, perching on the edge of the desk next to him. It was easier sometimes when they could speak without looking at one another, in the dark, or like this: side-by-side. He put his phone down between the two of them.

“You need to know I wouldn’t,” Neil murmured. “Not over something like that. Not at all, really. I don’t have anything to run from anymore, and I have nowhere to go except here.”

He couldn’t be sure which had upset Andrew more; that he felt like he couldn’t trust Neil, or that he did trust him and so coming back to find Neil gone and silent had shaken him. Neil wasn’t sure which was worse. He certainly didn’t know what to say to reassure him except just that, until Andrew believed him.

"I’m not going anywhere,” he continued, a promise that he meant to keep. “Not unless you’re coming with me.”


	3. Strong Suggestion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 110 “You’re like, five feet tall. How you gonna reach me, shortie?”

Andrew should, at this point, know better than to leave Neil unattended in a public place for more than five minutes.

It’s a Friday night so Eden’s Twilight is packed with drunken hooligans. The ones that belong to Andrew are either out in the crush of dancers or at the bar, leaving Andrew alone at their table. He’s been using the five-minute reprieve to – watch Neil, mostly. Which turns out to be a good decision.

He and Kevin have gone to the bar to get more drinks; they’re leaned up against it chatting to Roland while he pours. Andrew takes a second to examine the casual relaxation in Neil’s body, hard-won, and the graceful sweep of his hand as he gestures. He’s had a couple of drinks, not enough to be stupid, but enough to make him looser than he might be.

Andrew notices the guy sidling up before any of them: tall, dark hair, popped collar. He feels his own lip curl. Douchebags are easy to pick out even in a crowd.

The man reaches out and taps Neil’s elbow, drawing his attention with a touch. Neil jerks his arm away but turns, his expression calm – not unwelcoming, but pretty far from warm, too.

Mistake number one. Neil doesn’t like to be touched unprompted. The man’s lucky he didn’t cop an elbow in the face.

Andrew slides off his seat.

Roland is glaring, but Douchebag is too busy saying something to Neil to even notice. Neil shrugs in response, his shoulders gone tight. That’s irritating; Andrew does not appreciate seeing the tension making a return. Douchebag reaches out like he’s going to touch Neil’s hair, but Neil leans back out of his reach.

Kevin leans around and snaps something that makes Douchebag pause. If you have never met Kevin, you might for a second be intimidated by his size and chilly expression. Only for a second, though, apparently. Neil is radiating disinterest, his phone out as he half-turns back towards Kevin, clearly signaling the conversation is over. Douchebag doesn’t like that – he reaches around and plucks the phone from Neil’s hand.

Mistake number two. Neil Josten is a possessive little shit who doesn’t like people touching his things.

He turns and snarls something at Douchebag, making an unsuccessful grab for the phone. Standing face-to-face, the size difference between the two of them is clear. Ten inches and fifty pounds isn’t something to be sniffed at, but Neil has taken on backliners the same size.

Andrew is five meters away and closing, even though he is pushing through the crowd to do so. It’s enough to make him hate drunk people more than he already does.

Kevin makes a move to go after Douchebag. Neil, of course, shoves him back behind him.

“You’re like, five feet tall. How you gonna reach me, shortie?” Douchebag asks, loud enough for Andrew to hear. It might sound teasing if he wasn’t drunk, and if Neil wasn’t watching him like a snake poised to strike.

“Like this,” he says, and drives his knee up between Douchebag’s legs.

He drops, folding in half, and only avoids Neil’s fist in his face because Andrew grabs it to stop him. Neil can’t throw a punch to save himself – he’d break his hand, and Andrew would have to listen to him _and_ Kevin bitch about it for weeks.

Andrew shoves Neil back half a step, inserting himself between him and Douchebag. Then he reaches out and grabs the wrist attached to the hand still holding Neil’s phone.

Andrew has an excellent grip; bone grinds under his fingers.

He also has a reputation around here, even amongst drunken douchebags. This one looks him in the face and goes pale.

“It doesn’t pay to touch things that don’t belong to you,” he says, very calmly. Douchebag’s fingers have gone weak – the phone slips out of them onto the bar, where Roland catches it.

“Andrew,” Neil says. He doesn’t sound careful, the way he does when he wants to talk Andrew down. He sounds annoyed that Andrew stopped him from breaking the man’s nose. That’s typical, and enough that Andrew lets of Douchebag’s wrist – slowly. One finger at a time.

“I would strongly suggest you fuck off,” he suggests, leaning a little closer. Unsurprisingly, Douchebag does so. He can’t stand straight all the way; there are probably men all through the club wincing in sympathy right now.

Roland hands Neil’s phone to Andrew over the bar, his expression all amusement. “Thanks for not getting blood everywhere.”

Neil steals the phone for himself, his fingers hot against Andrew’s. “ _Andrew_.”

Andrew turns so Neil is pressed up against his front rather than his back. His voice is still mild when he says, “I know Boyd didn’t teach you to throw a punch like that.”

Neil’s face goes from irate to blankly surprised, and then back to irate. “He didn’t – _you_ punch like a street brawler.”

“Yeah, and I’m not the one who’s going to break his thumb.” Andrew has Neil’s right hand in his, folding it into a fist around his own thumb – exactly like Neil had it when he went to hit Douchebag. He looks down at it and then winces, but his expression when he meets Andrew’s gaze again is predictably stubborn.

“I can look after myself,” he insists, like he didn’t just come within inches of giving himself a season-ending injury.

He’s a flashy, too-lenient brat with a big mouth and little skill to back it up, and both of them know it. Andrew, who is the complete opposite of those things, raises his eyebrow and just looks at Neil until he blows his breath out.

“You’re lucky I was watching,” Andrew says, letting go of Neil’s hand in favor of gripping his chin between his finger and thumb.

Neil blinks slowly, leaning into the touch as his shoulders relax again. His hard-set mouth softens into the barest edge of a smile. “You’re always watching.”


	4. Car Abuse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Fuck you"

Neil was halfway through a meeting when his phone rang. Julia, the team GM, who had been interrupted mid-sentence by Neil’s admittedly brash ringtone, raised an eyebrow as he dug it out of his pocket.

“Uh, sorry. It’s my partner,” he said with an apologetic wince. She waved him off – thankfully the Cardinals team was more relaxed than some. Besides, it wasn’t as though Neil’s relationship was a secret – that was essentially what they were gathered to discuss, with the trades deadline looming.

Neil retreated through the glass door of the boardroom and leant up against the wall across the hallway to answer. After so long he probably should have regarded his phone slightly less like it was a bomb about to go off, but most people he knew texted rather than calling, and no one who called him would do so in the middle of the workday. Which meant he automatically assumed it was bad news.

“Hello?”

“How long has your ‘check engine’ light been on?” Andrew asked from the other end. He sounded distinctly unimpressed.

“Uh…I don’t know,” Neil replied, trying to think whether he’d noticed an unusual light on the dash of his car. Andrew had parked it in when he’d arrived this morning, so Neil had taken the Maserati and left Andrew his Audi.

“I’m guessing a while, since your faulty spark plug has now wrecked the catalytic converter. Congratulations.”

“I…don’t know what that means.” Neil’s knowledge of cars extended to fueling them, maybe changing a tire, and calling for a tow, but beyond that he was completely at sea.

“It means I’m stranded in a parking lot with a trunkful of groceries, and you’re about to have to cough up a grand to a mechanic,” Andrew said. Neil risked a glance out the window, taking in the cloudless expanse of sky – it had to be ninety degrees out there. Whatever Andrew had in the car would be baking, and Andrew would be doing the same.

“Where are you?” Neil asked. “I’ll drive over and pick you up.” There was no way Andrew would catch a ride with a tow-driver in this lifetime.

Andrew rattled off the street address of Neil’s local supermarket, the one that was familiar to Neil but wasn’t to him, considering Andrew currently lived in Portland.

“Fifteen minutes,” Neil promised, and hung up. When he glanced up, he had a boardroom full of Cardinals staff looking at him through the glass boardroom wall with blatant curiosity. No, Neil’s relationship wasn’t a secret, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t _interesting_ , apparently.

He stuck his head back through the door and looked to Julia. She, at least, looked amused rather than nosey. After all, she’d met Andrew before as Neil’s partner, not just as a highly successful and particularly vicious rival player.

“Sorry,” he said, “I’m going to have to cut this short.”

“Need to make a rescue mission?” she asked with a smile.

He shrugged. “Car trouble. Something about the catalytic converter?”

She winced, hard, which told Neil Andrew’s estimate of a grand in repairs might have been lowballing it. “That’s fine, Neil. I think we’ve covered all the important things,” she said. “Good luck.”

Neil offered her a smile on his way out, trotting down the stairs rather than waiting for the lift. It was off-season now, which just meant that Neil had more energy than he knew what to do with. The Maserati was fairly cool thanks to the underground parking at the stadium, even if it did mean that Neil had to grope for his sunglasses when he drove into the blinding sun outside.

It was an easy drive over, which was why Neil had picked that particular house to rent. It was close enough to the stadium that Neil didn’t have to get up too early before morning practices, but far enough away that Andrew didn’t complain about obsession when he visited.

He’d picked his usual market because it was quiet enough people didn’t bother him, and because it had a good range of fresh food. He couldn’t cook like Andrew, but he did well enough for himself to appreciate quality ingredients, these days.

The parking lot was fairly deserted when Neil pulled in – most people were smart enough to do their shopping when it was cooler. No doubt Andrew had been trying to avoid the post-work rush. Either that or he’d been frustrated by the sad lack of anything sugary in Neil’s kitchen, which was certainly a possibility.

Neil pulled up alongside the Audi and killed the engine.   He had a pack of cigarettes in the glove compartment that he grabbed, as well as a water bottle from his bag in the passenger foot well.

Climbing out of the air-conditioned car was like stepping into a blast furnace, even to Neil, who was by now used to the early-afternoon heat in Phoenix. Andrew, who was leant up against the passenger-side door of the Audi, watched Neil walking over.

“You call for a tow?” Neil asked, handing the bottle of water over first. Andrew looked fine to the untrained eye despite his all-black outfit, but Neil could see he was suspiciously pink in the face. He gave Neil a flat look that meant _yes_ with a side of _fuck you_ as he unscrewed the lid of the bottle. Fair enough – he had made a two-day car trip to visit Neil only to be stranded by Neil’s incompetence.

He reached out a hand, and Neil dropped the cigarette pack into it. “The Maserati is cool, if you want to sit in there.”

He left Andrew to smoking and went around to release the trunk so he could swap the groceries into the other car. The ice cream was going to be more liquid than solid by the time they made it home, but Neil doubted that would stop Andrew eating it.

By the time he’d finished, Andrew had migrated to perch on the hood. Neil sidled up and parked himself a few inches from his knees.

“They say how long they were going to be?”

“Twenty minutes, fifteen minutes ago,” Andrew said, passing the pack back over. Neil shoved it into the pocket of his jeans, letting Andrew grab the front of his shirt and pull him in closer. It was really too warm to stand so near to one another, but Neil wouldn’t complain.

“Meeting went well,” Neil volunteered. “Well, what I stuck around for. They’re all for a trade. Guess I’ll be in Thunder colors this fall.”

“It’s not this fucking hot in Portland,” Andrew said, blowing smoke. “And you won’t get the chance to abuse your car like this.”

Neil winced. “Sorry?”

“Whatever.” Andrew’s expression didn’t imply _whatever_ – even for him, he looked irritated. That didn’t stop him from pulling Neil in and pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, and then more firmly dead centre. Neil opened for him, relishing the taste of smoke on his tongue, the press of Andrew’s knees against his sides and his hand curled around the back of his neck.


	5. Traitor in Your Ranks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill – Andreil looking after each other while sick

Andrew hadn’t woken this morning expecting surprises – actually, he’d woken this morning thinking that surely death would be preferable – but entering his apartment to find Neil Josten cross-legged on his couch certainly counted as one.

“What the hell are you doing here,” Andrew rasped.

“You have a traitor in your ranks,” Neil replied, not looking up from the book in his lap. He was meant to be at PSU studying for his final exams, not here, wearing sweats, with his overgrown hair falling into eyes.

Andrew dumped the groceries he’d bought on the bench. “Dermott?” The two of them had made fast friends the first time Neil had visited the team and Andrew had wondered whether they were keeping in touch – he supposed that this proved they were.

“Laila,” Neil confirmed, one corner of his mouth curling a little. He glanced up, paused, and then gave Andrew a second, closer look. “She wasn’t exaggerating, apparently.”

Andrew stared back, daring Neil to keep going. He probably should have known better – this was Neil, after all.

“You look like hell,” Neil said, voice gone soft.

He felt like hell, too. He’d been a sweating mess before he’d set foot in the stadium this morning for practice: management had taken one look at him and sent him away before he could infect the rest of the team. Andrew had never been more grateful for a reprieve, even if it had left him without purpose in an apartment devoid of supplies.

Andrew seldom got sick, so he very rarely needed anything more specialised than some mild painkillers on hand. He’d picked up some cold medicine and food, all of it high in sugar. Neil had clearly had the same thought, because he had dropped another bag on the bench that looked to be mostly full of different kinds of tea.

“When’s your first final,” Andrew said, instead of acknowledging Neil’s comment. He popped two tablets out of the foil and swallowed them with a half-glass of water that felt miraculous on his inflamed throat. He had coughed all through the night, which had cost him several hours of sleep, and his voice.

“Couple of days,” Neil said noncommittally, which was so typical.

“They won’t let you stay another year because you failed your finals,” Andrew informed him. Neil laughed, snapping his book shut and leaning down to put it on the floor. His hoodie and shirt rode up as he did, revealing a strip of pale skin at the small of his back.

“Nah. I’m looking forward to getting out into the real world,” he said, gesturing at Andrew’s apartment. He probably meant no more college-related drudgery, or a professional contract, or a city like this one, but Andrew’s fogged brain wanted him right here. That was close enough to real world for someone like Neil.

“Andrew,” Neil said, watching him with his stupid warm eyes. He patted the couch cushion beside him. “C’mere.”

Andrew didn’t have a reason besides stubbornness to say no. He left everything sprawled across the bench – _later, later_ – and took the cushion and most of the rest of the couch, including the part where Neil was already sitting. It felt good to lie down, and even better to have the warm press of Neil’s thighs under his head. He sighed a little, which turned into hacking half way through.

“Yes or no?” Neil asks, and wound his fingers into Andrew’s hair when Andrew mumbled a yes. Four years and this kind of touch could be uncomplicated, just fingers against skin or hair with no intent to hurt.

“Keep studying,” Andrew muttered, because otherwise Neil would sit there and stare at him until Andrew told him to stop. Neil opened another book at his hip, obliging for once.

“If I get what you got, I’ll have an excuse to get out of finals,” he mused, and then laughed when Andrew punched him in the thigh.


	6. Nice Like That

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff prompt for my 500 followers on tumblr <3

“Hey, Neil – Jesus!” Nicky said. “How the _hell_ did you get that?”

Neil slunk a hand around and yanked his hem down, obscuring the lurid bruise at the base of his spine. He knew he should have put a belt on this morning. “I fell.”

“When? I don’t remember you going down that hard on Friday night. Not on your ass, anyway,” Nicky said, thumping his tray down and sitting next to Neil. Andrew, who was across from them, shot him an unconcerned glance and then resumed eating.

“Ah – just, night practice with Kevin.” Neil hoped that he wasn’t turning red.

“Maybe you need new court shoes, if you’re slipping over,” Nicky said, gesturing with his fork. “Did you get Abby to check it out?”

 _Oh, god_. “It’s not that bad.”

“Neil. I recognise that your version of ‘not that bad’ is broader than most peoples’, but bruises that colour don’t qualify, okay? What if you’ve broken something?”

“Nothing’s broken. It’s just bruising.” He hoped, anyway. He was pretty sure that Andrew would have dragged him to Abby despite everything if he thought Neil’s tailbone was fractured.

Nicky’s eyes narrowed. “You’re looking squirrely. Are you sure? Andrew, tell him he needs to get it checked out in case he’s broken something.”

Andrew, whose knees were as bruised as Neil’s ass, didn’t even bother to look up. “Nicky, shut up.”

“If he’s lying about how bad it is, shouldn’t you be concerned? Are you _helping_ him hide some kind of horrible injury?” Nicky asked, abruptly sounding legitimately concerned. “ _Andrew_.”

“Jesus, Nicky,” Neil groaned. “It’s actually fine, relax.”

“Neil, your health is important! I thought we’d finally gotten you to realise that, so please don’t start backsliding now,” Nicky said. His worry was warming to Neil even as he wondered whether he was going to have to throttle him to make him stop.

His voice was a bit softer when he replied, “I promise I’m not, Nicky. You know I wouldn’t.”

Neil had given up on lying about his injuries, even if he had to be reminded sometimes. Nicky was right, sometimes he wasn’t that good at recognising how badly he was hurt. He was getting better, though.

“You’re lying, aren’t you?” He didn’t mean Neil’s last statement. Neil’s stomach dropped: Nicky always caught a clue at the worst times. “You _both_ are. Why would you lie to me?”

Neither of them deigned to answer. Nicky looked between the two of them with narrowed eyes. “Is it something embarrassing?”

“I just slipped in the bathroom,” Neil started, and then winced. Nicky could be clueless, but there was no way he wasn’t going to put that one together.

“But why would you lie about -” Nicky said “- oh, my God. _Oh my God._ ”

“Nicky.” Neil wasn’t above begging, apparently. His voice had taken on a distinct note of pleading.

“There is literally only one reason I can think of why you both would lie about an injury caused by slipping in the bathroom. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Nicky…”

“So you’re telling me that you got that bruise falling over in the shower in the middle of sex?” he asked, hand to his mouth.

“Nicky.” It wasn’t a denial, and Nicky knew that.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry, I just-” he said, jumping to his feet and abandoning his untouched lunch. “That is _the funniest thing I’ve ever heard_.”

His laughter was audible until the doors swung shut behind him. Neil was pretty sure every single person in the dining hall was looking at him. He covered his eyes with both hands.

“I’m _sorry_.”

He peeled back his fingers in time to see Andrew shrug. He was still eating, utterly unbothered. “Well, it’s not like he’s wrong, is he.”

Neil glared. “You think this is _funny_. Andrew, he’s going to tell everyone we know.”

Andrew wasn’t smiling, but when he met Neil’s gaze there was a glitter of humour in his eyes. “Your face is the same colour as your hair.”

“Okay, well, next time you try starting something I’m going to say no and remind you of this moment.” That was a lie. Neil would never say no to Andrew, bruises and embarrassment or not.

“You’ve gotten worse at lying, Abram,” Andrew said in the low voice that never failed to warm Neil inside, or to turn the atmosphere electric between them. That was what had gotten them into this mess to start with, of course; Andrew saying, _Neil, come here_ , in that exact tone.

“Yeah. Even Nicky can see through me now.” Neil felt the corner of his mouth tilt up.

The smile didn’t last past finding a basket full of pots of bruise balm in his locker at afternoon practice. Neil threw Nicky on the floor a few times during scrimmage and called it even – he was nice like that.


	7. Other Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> K. On the edge of consciousness
> 
> (Warning for remembered abuse in a medical facility)

Because Andrew wants to live more than he wants to stay the fuck away from hospitals, he doesn’t protest being driven to the ER. He’s feverish and in pain, his mouth sour with swallowed bile. The bright hurt in one side his belly is enough of a hint that he needs actual medical treatment.

He isn’t Neil Josten, liable to think that everything is okay, or that it will be if he waits long enough. Neil Josten is driving the car, white-faced and pinch-mouthed, like anyone in this day and age dies of appendicitis. It’s pretty hypocritical that he looks so panicked, considering the shit that he’s put through Andrew over the years.

There are some advantages to the number of talks Andrew’s done to various collections of medical professionals, aimed at increasing awareness of people like him – none of the hospital staff protest Neil’s presence. It might, of course, be in part due to Neil’s rude insistence that he’s Andrew’s partner, and that he’ll be staying no matter what.

Andrew is too busy being examined to say anything to that. They’re impersonal and efficient, keeping everything to a minimum, but he’s still wound tight enough that his head is aching by the time they confirm their diagnosis and say that he needs surgery.

There’s quite a bit of paperwork. Neil fills out most of it while Andrew hunches on the edge of the bed, signing what is handed to him with an unshaking hand.

“Hey,” Neil says, still amidst the hustle of people around the bed, his eyes gone calm like he’s realised that he might need that take that role on now. “I’m gonna stay. Okay? Wouldn’t want them to swap you on me.”

Andrew just looks at him. There’s no way they’ll let him into an operating theatre – not that Neil would let that stop him, necessarily. Andrew has no doubt that Neil will be hovering over him in Recovery, though. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“You never know. I hear you have a clone practicing medicine down south.”

“You wouldn’t even notice the difference,” Andrew says. Neil chuffs out a low laugh, the first real break his face has taken from severity since they left the apartment.

The nurses are quick, gathering up what they need and informing him that they’ll take him through once he’s changed. Neil’s the only one who sticks around for that, his ponderous chatter a buzz of distraction. He’s halfway through some vague story about one of their teammates – Andrew isn’t sure which – when they come back to collect him.

Andrew has no desire to lie on the bed. He does anyway, because he’s good at doing things he doesn’t want to. He hasn’t had much practice, these last few years, but apparently it’s not a skill that fades.

“See you on the other side,” Neil says, picking up Andrew’s hand and pressing it to his mouth. His tone is casual, his gaze anything but. Over his shoulder, a pair of people in scrubs exchange a look and a smile – they might be surprised that ruthless-looking professional Exy player Neil Josten has a soft side, or they might just think the red-head with the wicked tongue is a little cute after all, when his mouth isn’t turned on them.

Andrew nods. They wheel him out and through a series of identical-looking rooms before parking him up and putting an IV in his arm.

The anaesthetist tells him to count down, but look unsurprised when he stays silent. He’s at four in his head when everything fades black and stays that way a while.

Waking up doesn’t go quite so smoothly.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that hospitals smell unforgettable, generic disinfectant over top of other much more organic scents. Andrew notices that before anything else.

The thing is, the last time he was in a hospital was Easthaven. The last time he came around like this, he had some motherfucker leaning over him, telling him all the ways he was going to try and break him.

He’s Andrew Minyard. He fought then, and he fights now.

There’s a lot of yelling. Also, pain. He’s weak but desperate, and that lends him a reckless brutality. No one ever survived dying without a bit of agony, but his heart is bounding and the adrenaline kick makes the bite of it fade back. Everything else, too.

That one fucking voice, though – it’s not ignorable. It says _let him go,_ and _back the fuck off,_ and _Andrew._

_Andrew._

_Andrew!_

He blinks, twice. The world comes back.

He’s half off the bed, held off the floor by Neil’s knee under his thigh. His hands are clenched so tight around Neil’s sides that he’s going to have fingerprints across his rib cage, as though he was going to shove Neil away and held him there instead.

Neil’s hands, a half-inch from either side of Andrew’s throat, are open and directing Andrew’s gaze to his face. His eyes are very blue.

“Hey,” he says. “Told you I’d see you on the other side.”

The various medical professionals, who have all retreated out of arm’s reach, venture closer when they realise that he’s not likely to kill them anymore. He didn’t have an IV line to rip out, but there’s a bunch of monitors that they cluck over. The bravest one examines his wound once he lies back, and pronounces it undamaged in a slightly quivering voice.

Andrew closes his eyes and ignores them. Neil’s right there, thumb pressed into the well of Andrew’s palm. He knows how to keep a promise.


	8. Hold Onto Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: fire/flames/excessive heat
> 
> (Warning: fire, burns, panic attacks)

It’s not the smell that wakes them. It’s the screaming.

Neil is moving before his eyes open. For a moment he thinks, _Andrew_. Then his higher functioning kicks in as he actually wakes up.

They’re in a hotel room. Andrew is upright on the other side of the bed, fumbling for the light switch, a dark silhouette against the window.

The screaming is the fire alarm, because the room is full of smoke.

It’s pouring through the ceiling light fittings, just visible in dim room. The bedside lamp doesn’t turn on, indicated by Andrew’s soft swearing, so he grabs his phone instead. The colour makes his face ghastly green in the haze. “Shoes, Neil. Now.”

His sneakers are lying by the side of his bed – he stuffs his feet into them, picks up his phone and hoodie, and goes for the suite door.

He can’t remember where he learned not to just open doors in a fire, but he doesn’t need Andrew saying his name to remind him not to. He touches it with one hand, and finds the wood so hot it feels like it might burst into flame at any moment. Smoke is starting to come from underneath it, too.

“Window,” he says. They’re on the top floor, but there’s a fire escape off of their suite. Neil, whose tendency to map out escape routes has long ago faded from the hyper vigilance of his college years, still notes things like that, and not just because those routes are sometimes useful when you cohabitate with a smoker.

Andrew wrenches it open, letting in a blast of frigid air. It is tentatively spring, but their entire trip for this game has been one snow day after another. Thankfully it isn’t snowing right now – the trip down is going to be slippery enough as it is when it’s this cold.

Except their section of the escape isn’t cold at all. Neil accidently bumps his hand against the railing as he climbs through, searing his knuckles.

“Fuck,” Neil says, flinching backwards. The metal is red-hot, like there’s conduction from above. There’s smoke outside too, pouring into the air in a black cloud – roof fire, he guesses. “Cover your hands before you touch.”

Pulling his hoodie sleeves down to his fingers – thank god for oversized team uniforms – Neil moves out of Andrew’s way. Smoke is escaping out the window above their heads, black and cloying in his throat. He hears Andrew’s elbow smack into the window frame as his heels clatter onto the balcony, much less graceful than usual. Neil flicks him a glance over his shoulder as he goes for the stairs.

Andrew – Andrew stops.

They’re on the eighth floor. The fire escape is a series of very steep staircases connecting steel mesh balconies - barely big enough for two people to stand on - from the rooftop to the ground. From where he’s standing, Neil can look between the stairs and see all the way down to the slush-covered street below. Which is precisely where Andrew is looking.

Later, Neil will think that it’s perhaps the first time he’s ever really seen Andrew falter like this. They’ve flown together more times than he can count, and he’s never paused. Fidgeted, yes. Snapped, yes. Gripped Neil’s hand more firmly than he would otherwise, yes. Besides that, neither of them go to high spots other than their own third-floor balcony.

This is more than a pause. He looks frozen to the spot.

Neil says, “Andrew. Look at me.”

Unwillingly, his head rises. His eyes are the last things to move, flickering up to Neil’s face and focusing on him. His jaw is so rigid that it looks like it could shatter.

Neil doesn’t have time to say _trust me_. Even if he did, the words would be moot, because Andrew does. Instead, he holds out his hand, and gently tows Andrew closer to the stairs.

He turns and offers Andrew his back. “Hold onto me. Just keep looking at me, okay?”

Andrew’s hands go to Neil’s hips, his grip hard enough to bruise. And when Neil takes the first step down, Andrew is right there nearly treading on his heels.

The first flight is an exercise in holding on to the railings hard enough that they won’t both go down if one of them slips, without losing skin off of his hands. He’s too scared to look where he touched the metal before, but it’s starting to ache in the way that burns do. The thick material of his hoodie is barely enough to shield his palms from the heat.

Once they get down a floor, the metal turns slick instead. The ice is melting this high up, but there’s water everywhere on the ground. He murmurs a warning to Andrew before they take that one, and then the next.

Overhead, glass shatters – a window blowing out. Suddenly, the roar of the fire sounds ten times louder, and Neil swears he feels the lick of heat on the back of his neck. Andrew does, too, by the low curse he lets out.

The fact that Neil can touch the railings without burning himself now doesn’t stop him from slipping on an ice patch between the fourth and third floors. It’s Andrew’s whip-quick grab of the railing with one hand that stops Neil from tumbling down when his foot goes out from under him.

There’s a breath-takingly long moment before Andrew takes his next step, after that. Neil resolves to go even more slowly, staring down at the ground with an intense awareness that wherever he puts his feet, Andrew will, too.

When they make it to the last balcony, the ladder to the ground is folded up, and refuses to move when Neil pushes at it with his good hand. He straightens and kicks at it until it gives in with a horrendous shriek. There are people milling below, but his focus is still on the man clinging to his back.

“Can you get down from here?” he asks, voice low.

“Yes,” Andrew snaps back, his hands still white-knuckled on Neil’s hips. It takes him a moment to let go, and when Neil turns so he can step backwards onto the ladder, his eyes are focussed dead ahead rather than down.

There’s no one home – he looks straight through Neil, not at him. Neil swallows the knot in his throat, hating everything that means Andrew is here right now, but knowing he has no choice. Then he starts his descent.

He doesn’t breathe until he hears Andrew shift, and the vibrations from him beginning to climb down registers in Neil’s hands.

It’s not a long way to the ground, but to Andrew it probably feels like a mile. Neil drops the last few feet, his eyes still fixed upwards on Andrew’s back as he follows. He moves methodically until his questing foot meets nothing, out of rungs, but he doesn’t move to jump the last few feet to the ground. His chin is still tilted up – there’s no way he’ll look down now, Neil realises, and no way he’ll release his death grip without knowing how much further there is to fall.

“You can let go,” Neil says, quietly but with the command he learned on the court.

Andrew lets go.

Neil is right there steadying him – more than, really. One arm around Andrew’s shoulder, he clutches him to his chest and feels for a second the shivers wracking through both of them. They’re cheek to cheek, hearts pounding. Andrew’s hand is gripping the back of Neil’s neck so tight they might end up melded together.

Someone says Neil’s name, and he glances up to find them being surrounded by a crowd of anxious teammates and people in uniforms. That’s when he notices that Andrew is without his armbands or a jacket, just in the sweats and shirt he went to bed in with his shoes shoved on. It’s cold enough for hypothermia out here, but that’s secondary to Andrew and Neil both. The way Andrew keeps his arms tight to Neil’s body is telling.

Andrew is never defenceless, but this might be the closest he gets to being disarmed.

Neil snarls, “ _Stay back_.” Everyone freezes to the spot except for Laila, who throws him the blanket she had wrapped about her own shoulders. Neil catches it and then moves back just enough he can swing it around Andrew at neck level. He waits for Andrew’s hand to come up and pinch it closed before he lets go.

Andrew is looking back at him now, eyes slitted in a face cast red-blue-red by the growing crowd of emergency vehicles. And it doesn’t matter that half of Neil’s team could still in in the building (they aren’t) or that most of their belongings and equipment will be ash come morning (they are). Relief swells through him.

That carries him through the prodding of the paramedics, through helping organise the team’s transfer to another hotel, and through the rest of the night when Andrew won’t – can’t – sleep. It gets him through the moment in the morning when he feels the blistering burns over his knuckles and remembers how fast the fire moved, staring blindly away from the bathroom mirror.

They are back in their own apartment by the next evening. Neil’s ribs are purple in patches; Andrew touches them with the pinch between his eyebrows his only tell.

Neil kisses him. Andrew’s the strong one so much of the time – it’s not a deal, the two of them, but Neil will keep up his end like it is.


	9. Philanthropy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: I was wondering if you could write some andreil angst/comfort (since its your forte) about Neil sneaking around and Andrew assuming maybe he's cheating (or the non-relationship equivalent) but it's actually something else completely?

Friday afternoon found Neil slicing vegetables for a casserole Andrew wanted to make over the weekend, up to his elbows in carrot and potato and celery. Andrew, who was quietly directing him from where he was sitting on the counter, bumped his heel into the cupboard door once.

Neil didn’t look up, but he knew when Andrew wanted his attention. “Yeah?”

Andrew said, “Are you sleeping with someone else?”

Neil’s hand slipped, driving the knife into the wooden chopping board hard enough to make a gouge. “ _What_? Andrew!”

Andrew tilted his head as Neil abandoned the knife and turned on him, his eyes wide. “I’m trying to figure out why you would lie to me.”

“About – Thursdays,” Neil answered his own question. “Jesus fuck, surely you don’t think-”

“In my experience, you lying leads to near-death experiences. So I guess by that measure, maybe cheating is a lesser evil,” Andrew interrupted.

“Okay, so are you concerned that I’m cheating, or that I’m going to get you killed?” Neil asked, his voice showing his abject confusion.

“I’m ‘concerned’,” Andrew’s voice was mocking to the point where even he was surprised, “that you are lying to me.”

That was the truth. Andrew knew that Neil wouldn’t cheat – not because he was incapable, seeing as he obviously wasn’t, but because Andrew knew there wasn’t anyone in Neil’s life who he cared enough about to be interested in. Not unless Boyd had suddenly gotten a divorce and decided to start sleeping with men. Neil’s social life was more active than Andrew’s, but not by much.

That had been what had made him curious in the first place. Neil had started going out on Thursday evenings for more than an hour, with the excuse of grabbing drinks with some of their teammates. Said teammates no doubt would have corroborated, had Andrew bothered to ask. He hadn’t. There was only one person whose answer he trusted.

Hence, Andrew’s question. Because if Neil wasn’t cheating, that almost certainly meant that his sneaking was because of something much worse.

Their lives had gotten much simpler since college, but Ichirou Moriyama was an ever-present shadow. Andrew had plans for him, if he became a problem – he was curious to see if they were going to be necessary.

Neil seemed to have finally regained most of his equilibrium. “Yeah. You’re right.”

“I know I’m right,” Andrew replied. “You used to be a better liar, by the way. You must be slipping, now that it’s more of a hobby than a lifestyle.”

“Or maybe you just know me better,” Neil said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Andrew stared at him at that, unimpressed. “You might need to re-evaluate your choices.”

“If you want to know, I’ll show you,” Neil said, already reaching for his car keys. There was no hint of fear in his sober expression.

Andrew nodded, sliding off of the bench and going for his jacket in silence. Once they’d both put on shoes, they proceeded down to the underground parking lot to the car, and Neil climbed into the drivers seat.

He took them across town, away from the apartment they’d bought that put them close to the stadium. Neil’s suspicion of the doorman watching him had eventually faded – he wasn’t used to living in such a nice place. Andrew wasn’t, either, but he was less inclined to paranoia than Neil. Usually.

They headed into the area of the city that was not at all like where they lived. It was strange how quickly that kind of life became unfamiliar, even if you’d grown up that way. Neil clearly knew the area well, though. He navigated the streets without a pause until they reached their destination.

It was a local gym, not the kind Andrew had gotten used to over the years – much more like the sort that he’d played in while he was in juvie. Square and looking vaguely like something a communist would have built. Neil parked in the lot with a bunch of cars that made the Maserati look very ostentatious, and they both climbed out.

“Come on,” Neil beckoned, leading him inside.

The main doors led into a reception area, complete with two very tired looking armchairs. The woman at the desk looks up and smiles at the sight of Neil, coming around to greet them.

“Hi, Anna,” Neil said. “This is Andrew, my partner.”

“Hi,” she said, offering her hand. Her gaze, when Andrew took it, was direct. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Played you, too. I was an offensive dealer for Penn State. You wrecked our season a few years back in a death match.”

“You’re a pro now?” Andrew asked.

“Nah,” she replied. “In my spare time, I run the program here.”

“I haven’t really explained it to him,” Neil said. “You do the spiel so well, I figured it was a shame for you to miss the chance.”

“Oh, for sure. Come through, Andrew.” She led them out of the lobby and into the main hall. It was full of a mish-mash of equipment of varying quality, dominated in the centre by a roped-off ring. The entire place was populated by the kind of kid that Andrew had been in high school – the sort that made nice white ladies lock their car doors, the kind who way too often ended up populating prison cells; the ones who no one gave a shit about.

Except, clearly, someone here did. “Local kids can use the gym whenever they like – we feed them when we can, give them somewhere to hang out before and after school. Lots of them are foster kids, or they have difficult home lives. We keep them off the streets and safe from cops and the gangs, as much as we can. We’ve got a good team of mentors here, too.”

“This is the part you’ll be interested in, though.” She led them through into an attached hall, turning the lights on as she did. It was a small Exy court, without the fancy plexiglass walls. Exactly the same kind that Andrew had learnt to play on.

“This is our court,” Anna said. “We’ve formed a bunch of six player teams, and we run a tournament when we can get sponsorship. The hard part is gear – we have the full range of sizes with our kids, and it’s tricky finding stuff to fit everyone. That’s how I met Neil. He contacted us when he heard about the program and asked if we needed any equipment.”

“Anna took me up on my offer, and asked me if I wanted to come down and watch practices,” Neil said. “Half of them practice on Thursday nights and half on Fridays.”

“I didn’t actually mean for him to _take_ the practices, but I figure we’re okay as long as he doesn’t get injured,” Anna said ruefully. “We can’t afford his insurance.”

“If there’s a court, he needs to be on it,” Andrew acknowledged.

The doors at the far end of the court banged open, admitting a host of yelling, scuffling teenagers in multi-coloured body armour. They seemed to have color-coordinated their shirts by team.

“Sorry, I should go deal with them,” Anna said. “You guys should join in, if you’re interested, though. You can ref. Or we might have some fancy new gear for you to borrow, if you need it.”

She sailed off with a grin to greet the kids, leaving Neil and Andrew behind.

“I’m not entirely sure why you needed to keep this a secret,” Andrew said after a moment of silence.

“What she didn’t mention is that she’s a lawyer,” Neil explained, eyes on the teams. “I’ve been working with her to establish city-wide scholarships to programs like this for kids – buying them gear, supporting their involvement into high school teams, stuff like that.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Wilds and Wymack.”

Neil flicked him a glance. “We’ve got plenty of money to be going onwards. May as well spend some of it helping people. It’s tax deductible.”

“And how are you selecting for these scholarships, exactly?”

“The kids are put forward by the community – teachers, religious leaders, programme organisers like Anna. Dan said she’d help me choose.” It figured that Neil would talk to her about this. She and Boyd had set up their own small scholarships over the last few years.”

“You’ll need a set of eyes much tougher than yours,” Andrew said. That wasn’t entirely true – Neil only had a select few for whom he would give up the entire world – but Wilds was unmistakeably more practical.

“Anyway, just to be clear, I’m not cheating on you,” Neil said, blunt as usual. “I wouldn’t. And I’m too busy setting the JM Exy scholarship anyway.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow. “Josten-Minyard?”

“Well, you wouldn’t agree to marry me,” Neil replied. “Or it that a protest that your name isn’t first? Because I think it’s just that way because it’s in alphabetical order.”

“You never asked me to marry you.”

Neil opened his mouth, and then paused. “So, does that mean if I did ask, I-”

“Neil?”

Their interrupter, a wary-looking boy of around fifteen, with a fair bit of growing to do going by his stretched-out frame, skidded to a stop in front of them. “Anna wants to know if you’re gonna play.”

He obviously knew who Andrew was – he kept glancing between the two of them, halfway between shy and curious.

“He will,” Andrew said. “I’ll ref.”

“Tell Anna to grab gear for her and me, Micah. I’ll be over in a sec,” Neil said. Once he’d bolted back to the others, he turned back to Andrew. “That’s going to be hell to fit on a jersey.”

“I haven’t said yes, yet,” Andrew established. “Fuck off. Go play with the other children.”

Neil was grinning unashamedly as he jogged away. And if Andrew’s mouth quirked upwards the tiniest bit, no one else was watching.


	10. Delicate Orbits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'Coming home' with some angst.

It’s – really stupid.

Neil is just so _tired_. He always is, these days. Like he hasn’t slept a full night through for two months. He hasn’t - he seems to have forgotten how.

That’s why he’s sitting in his car outside of his ex’s apartment.

He doesn’t remember driving here. He barely remembers getting in the fucking car to start with. He’s a danger to himself and everyone else right now.

He spent an extra hour on the court tonight after everyone else left pushing and pushing in an attempt to shut his brain down, but he’s only got to the point of making stupid mistakes.

He really doesn’t want to be here. It’s just that he also doesn’t particularly want to be anywhere else.

He’s still sitting there, unmoving and wondering whether he can get away with sleeping in the driver’s seat, when knuckles rap against his window. He jumps so hard that he bangs a knee on the steering wheel and makes his lower leg crackle with pins and needles.

The car door wrenches open. Andrew Minyard, apparently unsatisfied with nearly frightening Neil to death, snarls, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Neil doesn’t have an answer for that, or the breath to reply even if he did. He stares at Andrew blankly for a long moment, and then even longer – long enough that Andrew’s expression changes from openly furious to just irritated.

“Answer me,” he says, clicking his fingers in Neil’s face loud enough to make him flinch. Neil unclips his seatbelt, turning in his seat so he can get out. He feels at a disadvantage with Andrew looming over him.

Andrew, of course, doesn’t move back an inch. That leaves them standing almost against one another in the vee of the open car door. It’s too close when Neil is this near to slipping over an edge he can feel but can’t see.

“It was an accident,” Neil says, vaguely nauseated.

Andrew doesn’t look impressed by the excuse. He crosses his arms, giving Neil even less room. “I don’t believe you.”

They saw each other a couple of hours ago across the court. Despite everything, they’re still perfectly synchronised there. It makes moments right now seem harsher, when they are so out of step with one another Neil doubts he ever really knew anything about Andrew at all.

Fuck it. It’s Neil’s fault anyway – he probably deserves to stand here like this, unable to find any words to explain himself. There’s sweat crawling down his back despite the cool evening air. His stomach is cramping so bad he thinks he might be sick, but he swallows instead.

“Um,” he stalls, reaching blindly behind him for the car. It’s there, steady and welcoming, unlike the rest of the world, which seems to be turning liquid in front of Neil’s eyes. “I don’t-”

He can’t go on. His voice sounds warped to his own ears, Andrew’s even more so when he says something – Neil’s name? He can’t make it out. He can’t see at all anymore, beyond spangles of white and grey, and then black blotting everything else out.

 

* * *

 

 

Neil Josten is an idiot.

Andrew isn’t much better, though. He’s the one who catches Neil up against the car when his eyes roll back in his head, rather than letting him hit the pavement.

He ends up with a boneless armful of sweat-damp and deathly white striker, the same one he swore he’d never touch again two months ago. Andrew, who has never in his life broken a promise to Neil, doesn’t pause before hefting him up into his arms. The promise made was by Andrew to himself, and he’s never been quite so careful with those.

Neil starts to come around in the elevator, but he doesn’t struggle. Andrew feels his fingers hook into the front of his shirt, and wants to sigh.

He whimpers something about being sick when Andrew lowers him to the couch, eyes cracked, but Andrew doubts there’s anything in his system to throw up anyway. His blood sugar is probably on the floor. With that in mind, Andrew leaves him there and retrieves a glass of juice from the kitchen.

It’s a sign of how shit Neil feels that he’s still there when Andrew comes back. Andrew puts the glass down on the coffee table and then sits on it, feeling it shift but hold under his weight. It’s nothing fancy, an Ikea one that Andrew put together on a Sunday afternoon months ago while Neil handed him all the wrong parts.

Neil sits up and takes the glass, swallows it down even when the first taste makes him look green rather than just pallid. When he puts it back on the table, swallowing harder than he should need to, he says, “I should go.”

“You must really overestimate how much I hate the population of this city if you think I’ll let you get behind the wheel of a car right now,” Andrew says. It feels like the most he’s said in months. Actually, it might be.

“I’ll take a taxi,” replies the man who can’t bear being driven around by strangers. “The cats-”

He looks at Andrew then like a mention of those furry assholes should make him angry. Andrew says, “They have an automatic feeder,” like he doesn’t give a shit, because he really doesn’t.

That had been the trade they had made – cats for the right to this apartment and Andrew staying here. Neil, who adored them, would have left Andrew with both and run if Andrew hadn’t forced him into staying by feigning running himself. He still has a letter of resignation in his desk drawer for that reason.

That has left them in the same city, on the same team, delicate orbits intersecting in ways that were never going to lead to anything but collision in the end.

Andrew thought that Neil wanting to keep him here meant more than that his junkie heart couldn’t bear having second best at his back – he’s been starting to doubt that, recently. Now he’s not sure what to think.

Neil says, “What are you doing.” Like a demand, not like a question, in the way that Andrew hates.

“I could ask you the same question,” Andrew replies. “Actually, I already did.”

“I fucked up,” Neil says, more frank than the, _it was an accident,_ from before despite it being almost the same words. “I was tired. I wanted to go home and I ended up-”

- _here_.

“Guess I forgot my own address,” Neil says with a shrug, a self-deprecating attempt at a joke that drops dead between them. “So, I should go. Are you going to let me?”

He always has had a taste for taking the easy shots. Andrew, who got used to that eventually, stares at him with one eyebrow raised.

He already let Neil go once. The only thing Andrew knows to say in response to _no_ is _okay_. So when Neil said _no I can’t do this_ at the end of a bad month of sleepless nights and bad losses and threatening phone calls from a man Andrew would happily end if he could get close enough, Andrew said _okay_ and let him run, feelings not as excised from the situation as he would have liked.

He’d snarled. He’d leashed Neil here, even though he hadn’t had the right. He’d fought in the indirect moves he learned as child, like someone more frightened than he should have been. It was ugly, which made it Andrew, except for how up until then he’d stopped associating those two things quite so closely.

Neil says, “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Andrew says, “Are you still afraid?”

Andrew’s memory has always been a vivid, sensory thing. He remembers with crystal clarity Neil saying, _no, I can’t do this. I can’t risk you like that,_ and the hopeless expression on his face.

Andrew thought it was stupid then, and he still thinks it is now. Andrew has been in danger since the day he was born, and a few years of domestic quietude didn’t mean he was surprised when things started to go wrong two months ago.

“I’m still scared,” Neil says, a quiet admission. “I thought – if you weren’t around, I wouldn’t feel like that anymore. But I didn’t stop caring just because I’m living on the other side of town.”

Andrew is utterly unsurprised. Even less so when Neil goes on, an outpouring, “I don’t want to feel like that, and be alone. Andrew, I really fucked up.”

“Yes,” Andrew says.

“Can I stay?” Neil asks, the question that he should have asked Andrew two months ago rather than snatching Andrew’s ability to make his own choice from his hands and pretending like it was Neil’s decision all along.

“I already said that,” Andrew says. “You’re a wreck.”

“No, I mean…” That tender hope blooming in his face withers. “Okay.”

“Neil,” Andrew interrupts whatever path his brain is heading down. “You’re not listening. _I already said that_.”

Neil’s memory isn’t like Andrew’s. That doesn’t mean he won’t remember Andrew saying two months ago, _okay. But you can stay, if you want._ That Neil, thinner than Andrew remembers him being since they met and exhausted, thought Andrew slammed that door in his face and locked it then is typical. That he’s here, knocking tentatively anyway, is more so.

He’s forgotten that he has a key. Though by the look on his face right now, he’s remembering.

"Okay," he says, all relief.  "Okay."


	11. Dinner Bookings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 'Could you maybe write about Andrew proposing to Neil and your interpretation of how it'd happen?'

Saturday is quiet for them with no practice, though Neil goes for a run anyway. Andrew, awake out of habit, makes coffee and then retreats back to the bed with it. He ends up falling asleep again, curled and comfortable, despite the caffeine hit. He hears Neil return and the shower start, but does nothing beyond shift positions before he’s dozing again.

By the time he wakes properly again, it’s ten-thirty, and he’s alone. He climbs up and pads through the apartment, room to room, to where he knows Neil will be.

He leans up against the lounge doorframe, feeling the cool press of it through his shirt. Neil is stretched out over most of the couch in the late morning sun with his phone held up to his face – he’s obsessed with some stupid game at the moment. It’s better than his brief foray into twitter was, at least.

He looks up when he catches Andrew moving out of the corner of his eye and smiles at the sight of him in that quiet way of his. Andrew, incapable of forgetting, thinks suddenly of the man who smiled exactly like that when he said _this isn’t nothing_ and Andrew agreed with him.

He was right: it’s something. To have him curled into the throw Renee gave them as a housewarming gift, his socked feet sticking out the end, is something. To have him, at all.

It’s such an honest moment. And as cliché as it sounds, Andrew could swear that it he feels his heart tick faster.

“Hey Josten,” he says. “Want to get married?”

Neil stares at him, the smile dropping off of his face. “You asshole.”

There’s a dizzying pleasure in the outrage creeping into his voice. Andrew says, “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I spoiling your plans?”

“You _asshole_.”

“You know, I’ve heard that that question necessitates a yes or no answer.”

Neil puts down his phone, his movements decisive. When he stands, he moves like the athlete he is – fierce, quick, and a little brutal – and puts himself into Andrew’s space so they’re both crammed into the doorway, chest to chest.

He asks, “What gave me away?”

“You’re not that subtle,” Andrew replies.

“I made _dinner bookings_ ,” Neil accuses, like that’s the part he’s most offended about. “How long have you known?”

Andrew thinks about it. It’s not that he was snooping – he’s hardly the type – it’s more than his is the kind of mind that puts clues together. Neil, the eternal problem in need of solving, really should have thought about that.

It was the long phone calls to Renee and Dan, and Boyd’s trip out for the weekend, and the singular conversation with Kevin that left Neil in a foul mood for hours afterwards. It was some strange withdrawals on bank statements that Andrew noticed sorting things for their accountant. It was Neil lost in thought and mindlessly touching his right thumb to his left ring finger.

It’s been months. To be fair, Andrew didn’t realise that Neil’s less-than-casual invitation to dinner from last night was the culmination of all that time spent gathering his nerve to ask Andrew the question he wants to. He’s not sorry, though.

“A while,” Andrew says. “You have a tell.” He picks up Neil’s left hand, strokes his own thumb over the top of his ring finger where it meets his knuckle.

Neil goes pink. “Ah.”

“Ah,” Andrew echoes. “I know you. Remember?”

He still has Neil’s hand cradled in his. Neil’s fingers curve around his palm in the same way they have done hundreds of times over the last decade, his grip as firm as it’s ever been.

“I wanted to do it right,” he says quietly, at a distance of a couple of inches, eyes gone luminous with irritation and something else. “You usually take the lead, with us. I figured maybe I could this once.”

That’s probably fair. Andrew has been the initiator, first out of necessity and now out of habit, for most of the important decisions in their lives, right since the very first one. He takes the first step, Neil the second, until they collide at the middle point.

“Why change what works, though.” That it does is undeniable – their _something_ is the proof of that.

Neil smiles again, crooked but still honest. “Good point.”

Andrew hasn’t managed to steer them wrong thus far. And perhaps he didn’t really consider _marriage_ as a thing that they could do, until he considered what his answer would be in response to Neil’s potential question. Maybe he didn’t think that he’d be the one asking until ten minutes ago, dazed by sleep and sunlight. It doesn’t matter.

Because he has never backed down in his life, Andrew says, “I asked you a question. Is it yes or no?”

“You know it’s always a yes for me,” Neil replies. When they kiss they meet halfway, just like they always do.


	12. Comfort/Trigger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from superfuckmelamps about Andrew comforting Neil after a nightmare.

Andrew woke up to the mattress shifting as Neil levered himself out of bed.  There was no explanation for where he was going – there usually wasn’t.  Neil wasn’t as good with words as he liked to think he was, especially when he woke himself up in the night.

Andrew, who preferred silence anyway, waited until the aching urge to just close his eyes and sleep again faded, and then dragged himself upright.  He grabbed his hoodie from where it was sprawled over the top of the dresser and put it on, folding his pack of cigarettes into the pocket before following.

The entire apartment was still dark, but the sliding door to the balcony was cracked open to let in the sound of the street below.  Andrew went to it, ignoring the bite of cold air across his bare feet. He made sure his steps sounded on the floor as he walked.

Neil had folded himself down into the spot between the lonely outdoor chair they’d inherited from the last tenants and the railing, a black shape huddled in on itself.  Andrew reached for the light switch just inside the door.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Neil said roughly, hearing the tap of Andrew’s nails against the plastic.  

Part of Andrew wanted to anyway – there was nothing for Neil in the dark and the cold.  He didn’t because he could just make out the bowed line of Neil’s neck, curved down, the press of his arm to his scarred left cheek.  This was less run-and-hide than it was reaching for control.  And when it came to coping methods, Andrew didn’t have much of a leg to stand on, even compared to Neil.

He stepped out onto the balcony but didn’t get close, dropping the pack of cigarettes on the ground within Neil’s reach so the lighter inside rattled.  Then he turned around, sliding the door all the way closed behind him.

He went for his sneakers, first, tugging them on.  Then he pulled the duvet off of the bed and threw it over his shoulder.  The cats both protested the rude disturbance as they were sent sprawling onto the mattress, but he ignored them.  It was payback, as far as he was concerned.

Back in the kitchen, he made a mug of decaf coffee – white, no sugar – and one of hot chocolate.  Any remaining adrenaline in his body from being so abruptly woken drained out of him through his hands as he went through the motions he could probably remember in his sleep.

They had a routine, these days.  Andrew sometimes struggled with the idea of that.  Tonight wasn’t one of those times, though.

The pack was in exactly the same place when he returned to the balcony, untouched, which meant that this was one of those nights.  Andrew put the mugs down on either side of it, then took the duvet off of his shoulder and threw it into Neil’s lap.

He took a spot on the concrete on the other side – the balcony wasn’t that big, but it was enough that they both had their space like this.  Once situated, he folded his mug between his hands and let the heat sear his palms a little.  The sensation chased away the habitual desire for the taste of nicotine, the steady inhale-exhale of smoke.

Neil had told him about what that smell meant to him back in Andrew’s junior year, why he used it as his anchor after all this time.  Andrew hadn’t started to pick up the relationship with nights like this one until months later, but he was familiar with the idea of a stimulus riding the edge of comfort and trigger.  Neil knew that, too: that was why he was always so careful with his touch.

After a few minutes, Neil moved.  The duvet rustled as he unfolded it from his lap and then pulled it around his shoulders.  He reached for the second mug and held it up to his face, letting the streetlight-orange steam wash over him.

Andrew looked away, taking a sip of his own drink.  It was too hot, but the sting was a contrast with the rich sweetness of the chocolate.  Comfort, trigger – they were all the same to him.

Neil said, “Can you…”

He cut himself off, and then made a frustrated noise.  No more talking for the man who lived for the damage his words-turned-weapons could do.  

Andrew made it simple, the same way he always did.  He shuffled closer, and put his mug down, and held out his hand to where the barest trace of light silhouetted Neil’s jaw.  “Yes or no?”

At his murmured _yes_ , Andrew touched his knuckles to the sharp line of it – damp to the touch – and then curled his fingers just this side of too firm about the back of his neck.

The sound he got in response was just a breath, shaking on the way out, written all over with relief.

Neil said, “You’re here.”  It wasn’t quite addressed to Andrew, and it wavered between statement and question, but the way his eyes, just barely visible, flickered to him and away again was telling.  

Andrew didn’t reply - his grip was his answer, anyway, unyielding as stone.


	13. Wanna See Crazy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was for drunk!Andrew but I couldn't make that work very well.
> 
> Chapter warnings: violence, drugging, non-con elements.

Andrew wakes up in his bed in Columbia, alone, with a big black blank in his memory.

His head hurts and his stomach is roiling. That doesn’t stop him opening his eyes, his hand reaching under the pillow for the knife he - doesn’t keep there anymore.

The reason for that says, “You’re fine.”

Neil is on the other side of the room hitched up on the window sill, silhouetted by daylight, his gaze a patient weight. Andrew pushes himself upright - slowly. Even then the movement makes him want to retch.

The last thing Andrew remembers is finding a table in the crush at Eden’s, Neil tight to his side, the others rowdy with the opportunity to get drunk and stupid on a Friday night, the taste of whiskey on his tongue. His skin prickles all over: he isn’t one to forget, ever. 

Not unless someone makes him.

“What happened?” he asks, his voice coming out as rough as he feels. It sounds like a threat.

Neil’s gaze is measured, calm, closed off. He looks like what Andrew sees in the mirror - reins pulled so tight there’s no room for anything else but pressure, but control.

He’s too calm. That makes Andrew’s heart beat a little bit faster, because he knows a lie when he sees one.

There’s a nearly-inaudible knock at the door and it swings open so Nicky can stick his head inside. When he sees Andrew sitting up relief passes across his face. “Hey, you’re awake.”

Andrew doesn’t bother to respond. After a moment, Nicky turns to Neil and says, “Do you need anything?”

His gaze flickers from Neil’s face to his hands. Andrew turns to follow it, finds hastily cleaned grazes and knuckles already going black. 

Neil lets them both look, unconcerned. “I’m fine, Nicky.”

Nicky doesn’t look like he has the guts to argue. It’s interesting that he appears so openly nervous - Andrew is familiar with that expression, but usually he’s the one putting it there.

“Andrew?” Nicky asks. When Andrew doesn’t answer again, he says, “Drink some water, okay, please.” Then the door clicks shut almost soundlessly as he withdraws.

Andrew turns his focus back to Neil, raises an eyebrow. Neil mimics the expression, and shows his first tell - his fists clench and then relax against his thighs.

He says, “Someone slipped some shit into your drink at the club.”

His temper, sharp and the type to burn hot and quick, is in direct contrast to Andrew’s: slow, rolling, unavoidable and inescapable. That this anger hasn’t burnt out yet, that there’s an audible touch of it to his voice still, is interesting.

There’s no space inside of Andrew for things like embarrassment ( _what did I do?_ ) or regret ( _how did I let that happen?_ ). He says, “Were you stupid?”

Neil shrugs, though some of the tension in his shoulders bleeds away at that. “Am I ever not?”

“Come here,” Andrew says, pointing to a spot on the floor in front of him. “Don’t touch me.”

Neil slides off of the wall and walks over, standing in the place Andrew indicated with his hands loose at his sides. After a second, Andrew reaches over and takes his right one to examine it.

It’s bruised to hell and Andrew’s grip must hurt, but he doesn’t flinch. There isn’t enough swelling to indicate a fracture and he could move both: Andrew is more than familiar with the symptoms of a broken hand. Obviously he learned something from Boyd’s boxing lessons after all. 

Andrew’s head hurts. He still want to be sick. He keeps hold of Neil’s hand too tight for second, says, “You’re an idiot,” and ignores the way that the last of the anger melts out of Neil’s eyes in response.

*

_(“You should be thanking me. That bitch really needs to loosen up.”  
_

_“Excuse me?” Neil’s face looks so mild, like that might be an honest request for the guy to go on. Nicky doesn’t like that look - he doesn’t trust it. If Nicky feels sick to his stomach at the implication, he can only imagine what Neil is feeling._

_“You heard me. They say he’s crazy - maybe some of us just wanted to see it in action, because he seems a little boring to us. You trying to tell me you aren’t at least a little into that?”  
_

_He gestures to where Kevin is more than half holding Andrew up behind Neil. He’s not doing anything in particular, just hanging there loose in Kevin’s hands - all the fight gone out of him. All the control, too. His spine, usually steel, looks like it’s turned to water._

_Nicky forgets sometimes how quick Neil can be. It’s not likely he ever will again, after tonight._

_Not after watching him hold the guy by the collar in a bloodied fist, jerked up on his knees when he’d be flat on his back on the ground otherwise. Not after hearing him say, in a voice almost teasing, “You wanna see crazy?”_

_Not after watching the way he walks off afterwards, no care for the bouncers or the cops they say are on the way, wiping blood off on his jeans like he’s already forgotten the man he’s left broken behind him._

_Nicky doesn’t know all of Neil Josten. He thinks he might know a little more now, though.)_


	14. Photography

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A kind of sequel to [Dinner Bookings](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7727215/chapters/17796619) for [ilgaksu](http://ilgaksu.tumblr.com/)

_“This is your fault,”_ Andrew says in Russian, utterly impassive as he watches yet another nameless minion scuttle across the living room set. Said minion, feeling Andrew’s gaze on him, scuttles faster.

_“You agreed to this,”_ Neil reminds him, like he hasn’t just been thinking the same thing in Andrew’s direction.

Kerry, the reporter, looks between them. “I hope you’re saying something sweet right now.”

She’s grinning because she knows there’s no chance of that. That’s why they picked her for this - she’s a straight shooter, and has a good sense of humour going by the way she’d grinned and said _I promise to play nice_ when they’d talked to her.

They’ve been hounded for details about their marriage relentlessly by the press since it - somewhat unintentionally - went public, and the statement released by their agents hasn’t been enough to satisfy either the media or the fans. The harried PR team eventually convinced them to do some kind of magazine article, gently leaning on Neil with comments about being the first openly gay couple in Exy, about providing an example for LGBT people and other young athletes, and about owing their fans.

Andrew had said in his flattest voice that they didn’t owe anyone anything, but Neil probably did owe the PR department at least one freebie considering his track record, so he’d agreed on the proviso that they got to pick the reporter and magazine.

Hence, Kerry, and the fake living room with the uncomfortable white leather couch that Neil is perched on right now. Andrew and Neil had made a mutual, unspoken agreement that they wouldn’t allow a hoard of strangers into their apartment, and Neil is impossibly grateful about that now. All these people wouldn’t even fit inside their living room at home.

They’ve already done the interview part, which was mostly an exercise in Kerry drawing what she could out of them and then promising that she’d make it what they needed it to be. She’s worked with Andrew before back when he was freshly out of college for an article about talented new blood in the professional ranks. Neil doesn’t remember the article, but Andrew had - he’d been the one to suggest her for this. That alone was enough for Neil to trust her, to some extent.

Unfortunately, they were never going to get out of this without photos. The official statement about their relationship hadn’t had any, not that that had stopped various outlets finding the least flattering college photos they could for their articles. Neil’s personal favourite is their local paper, which put in their blank-faced Fox mug shots side by side.

This is, apparently, meant to be better. Neil would rather they used the posed shot from Andrew’s graduation with the rest of the Foxes cropped out like RACQUET did, but he’s been informed that that is not an option this time, so he’s here in fancy borrowed clothes while the photographer fusses with some kind of lighting apparatus.

The photographer has a maniacal grin that Neil doesn’t like. He tries to keep his suspicions to himself as Kerry gets up to give the man free reign. He immediately instructs the two of them to sit closer with a pushing-together gesture that involves his entire upper body.

Neil slides an inch closer so their shoulders just barely brush.

“Can you put your hand on Neil’s knee, Andrew?” the photographer asks, still grinning.

“Ask him that,” Andrew says, staring back. 

The smile slips downwards, and then bounces back up when Neil hurries out, “It’s fine.”

Andrew’s hand, very slowly, rises and then drops down onto Neil’s thigh. It rests there like a warm dead weight, hanging rather than gripping. It’s potentially the only relaxed part of Andrew - he’s sitting just as rigidly as Neil is, for all it’s not as obvious on him.

Neil resists the urge to laugh. Somehow he doubts that’s what the photographer was going for.

Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t ask for anything like that again. After he’s taken what feels like a thousand photos of them sitting frozen an inch apart on the couch, the two of them get split up for individual shots, which to Neil seems to defeat the purpose seeing as this article is essentially about them being together. When he opens his mouth to say as much, Kerry raises an eyebrow at him from where she’s hovering in the background and he stops himself.

They get Andrew to lean against the wall by one of the tall windows, arms crossed. It’s meant to look casual and relaxed, but it’s Andrew, so it looks intense instead. He stares at the camera like it’s a dare, head tilted back, and the photographer seems quietly excited about it underneath the sound of clicking.

When it’s Neil’s turn, they make him stand in front of the window facing outwards so he’s looking over the city. The photographer stands against the wall to one side and asks him to make a make a variety of awkward poses like he’s in deep thought watching the parking lot across the road. 

The feeling of facing away while an entire crowd of people stand at his back is not comfortable, even knowing Andrew is right there. The fourth time Neil looks away from…whatever it is he’s supposed to be staring at in the middle distance because another person appeared in his peripheral vision, Kerry says, “Right. Everyone, out. Leave me that camera.”

_“I guess that doesn’t include us_ ,” Neil mutters to Andrew, who has been standing behind someone holding lighting equipment making them nervous.  _“Pity.”_

The photographer, affronted, says, “You can’t-”

“I did a course at college, I can manage,” Kerry says, waving him off. “Go, get out. Don’t you know my time is valuable?”

The photographer and the minions finally leave the room, and then it’s just the two of them, Kerry, and a camera that she stares at perplexedly as she turns it over in her hands.

“Just sit over there for a second,” she says, gesturing at the couch as she stands and walks halfway across the room, pressing buttons on the camera seemingly at random.

Neil drops down onto the couch, this time letting his back rest against the cushions. It’s amazing how much more relaxed he instantly feels now there are less people in the room and just Andrew’s body weight beside him.

He looks to Andrew, noting the way the vee neck of his borrowed sweater leaves the strong lines of his throat and collarbones exposed, skin very fair against the dark-coloured fabric. The girl who’d suggested it had called it ‘charcoal’, but it looks pretty much like black to Neil. She hadn’t been impressed when he’d said that though.

When Neil’s eyes travel to his face, Andrew is looking back at him, fully focussed. His face is calm, steadfast, but there’s a glitter in his eyes that makes Neil’s mouth quirk at the corners.

“This is actually your fault,” he says in English, quiet enough that Kerry shouldn’t be able to catch it.

“Who referred to who as their husband on national television?” Andrew asks, like it’s a genuine question, still holding Neil’s gaze. Neil’s smile grows bigger. Andrew does have a point there. That was definitely, definitely Neil.

A flash goes off. Neil, blinking, looks over to find Kerry grinning at him as she lowers the camera from her face. It suddenly looks a hell of a lot less ungainly in her hands.

“Sorry,” she says. “I never said I wouldn’t play a _little_ bit dirty.”

 

* * *

 

The magazine comes out on a Thursday when Andrew and Neil are travelling for a game, shuttling between planes in a blur of teammates and airline staff and random strangers. Neil doesn’t think twice about it until he turns his phone on during their stopover and it rings in his hand, Nicky’s name flashing up on the screen.

“Are you calling to make fun of us?” he asks when he answers it. Court Magazine has an online version that goes out worldwide, and he has no doubt that Nicky probably broke download speed records to see it in Germany.

There’s silence on the other end. Neil says, “Nicky?”

“Have you seen it?” Nicky asks. His voice sounds weird.

“No, we’re - are you alright?”

“Yeah.” He sniffs damply. “This is really good. You know that, right?”

“I haven’t seen it, we’re travelling today,” Neil says. “Andrew read over the article beforehand and okayed it…are you crying?”

“Neil!” He’s definitely crying. “I’m just happy for you!”

“What,” Neil says to the dial tone. Andrew, who is sitting next to him, offers him a raised eyebrow. “Your cousin is - I really don’t know. I’d forgotten that article was coming out today.”

Andrew passes him the iPad in his hands, already logged into the airport’s dubious free Wi-Fi. Neil signs into his email account and finds, amongst the mass of unread ones, one from kerry.glass@courtmagazine.com. There is no message, just an attachment and the subject line, which reads ‘happy reading! :)’.

Neil clicks the attachment and watches it download. It opens on the screen like an actual magazine, and he blinks.

The photos of them in dark clothes against pale backdrops are certainly eye-catching. One of the them is of him, side on with the scars on his right cheek obvious despite the ‘casual’ tumble of his hair. He’s looking out the window in front of him, eyes fixed forward with his fingers pressed against the window frame. He looks like he has no idea that there’s a photographer standing over him, the light turning his pale irises transparent. Neil makes a face at it - it’s been years, but he’ll never be used to being photographed.

The matching individual shot of is Andrew staring straight through the camera lens with hooded eyes like he’s issuing some kind of challenge. Neil catches himself touching a finger to the screen and stops himself, though not before he leaves arcing smudge over the fall of Andrew’s hair.

The third photo in the double-page article is of them together. They used Kerry’s shot, blown up large above whatever it is she’s written. They aren’t touching anywhere - there’s a half-inch gap between Neil’s bent knee and Andrew’s thigh, and their bodies are angled away from one another. 

It just doesn’t really seem that way with how they’re looking at each other. Neil is smiling just a little bit, almost a smirk. Andrew’s face is composed but there’s a notable softness around his eyes as he stares back.

They look - 

It’s a nice photo. Neil shakes his head and passes the iPad back to Andrew without reading a word of the article itself, including the title. “Here.”

The eyebrow goes up again, but Andrew doesn’t say anything. Neil mutters, “They’re going to go on about this _forever_ ,” and isn’t sure whether he means the fans or their teammates or every one of their friends. He just hopes they don’t all _cry_ over it.


	15. Relapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: 'a lot of people write about neil being worried about andrew leaving him, but what about andrew being worried that neil will leave since neil's a runner right?'
> 
> Warnings: discussion of depression/PTSD symptoms

Andrew is wading through the worst low he’s had in years. He’s heavy, weighed down like his bones are cored with platinum and not marrow, doing up his belt a notch tighter than he should be because food is all ash in his mouth.

Bee uses the word _relapse_  with him, explains that he’s veering off baseline like he can’t figure that out for himself. All Andrew cares about is that he hasn’t been looking for reasons to stay alive like this for so, so long.

This is him out of control. This is him trapped between apathy and the kind of hurt he can only do to himself, locked inside his own head. This is him, feeling nothing. Or, this is him, feeling pain. It gets hard to distinguish between the two.

Neil, caught up in his final year at PSU, is both distant and claustrophobically cloying by turns. There are miles and miles between them, Andrew in a different city and away from everything familiar. Neil doesn’t have to say that he’s lonely for Andrew to know that, just like Andrew doesn’t have to say he’s on the fucking floor right now. 

Neil has Robin, has Wymack, has an entire team of Foxes, and the latter might not be what he would call family, but they’re still there. He’s okay. 

Andrew has Neil a phone call away, Nicky texting him at half-hourly intervals, Bee’s continued presence in his life, a new apartment and a new team. He should be okay.

None of those things matter. That he should be okay - that doesn’t matter. He isn’t. There’s nothing he can do about that except wait it out.

The claustrophobic part is that Neil texts almost as much as Nicky these days - observations, complaints, the occasionally brutally sarcastic comment. He flies out whenever he can, even if he’s weaving on his feet with exhaustion and putting his already-dubious grades at risk just for a night and a day in Andrew’s presence. And Andrew doesn’t exactly make those trips rewarding for him.

His well-meant touch is too much like feeling, too much like pain - too much, just too much.

Andrew pushes him back, away, all their hard-fought-for proximity sacrificed for the time-bomb that is his brain. And Neil goes, like he always does.

That’s the trigger. Andrew just doesn’t see it until much, much later.

Not for Neil. That’s all Andrew, gun to his own head. He doesn’t know that until later, either. Doubt isn’t for people like him, committed to the core, but there’s a thread in him and he pulls on it at night when he can’t sleep and in the mornings when he struggles to get out of bed. 

_He stayed because of me_. That’s an irrefutable truth that Andrew holds inside him, twisted up tight with that doubt, and when he tugs on the latter both start to unravel. 

_There’s nothing left for him to stay for._

_Nothing_ feels like familiarity, a skin he slips into like he never tore it off. Or not a skin - something deeper, in the flickering, faltering heart of him, reaching from the inside out rather than the other way around. In his bones, in his veins, clawing at the back of his throat looking for an outlet that he can’t afford to give it, because he remembers that, too.

_There’s nothing left for him to stay for_  becomes _he won’t stay,_ with the same surety as Andrew devotes to every other truth. His brain is a liar sometimes, and he knows that, but it doesn’t mean anything in the face of being awake in the middle of the night with only it for company.

It’s easy to sink into silence, to let messages go unanswered until they slow to a trickle over days and then weeks, to ignore calls until they divert to the voicemail service he never calls back. Easier than opening his mouth, the idea of which makes his fingers feel numb and his tongue roll back down his throat.

He keeps going. There aren’t any other options he’s interested in, and besides every deal he’s ever made there’s still practice, still the contract he signed promising his new team his effort, still the wild, stupid adrenaline of just him and his car in the middle of the night going nowhere at all. Things that have nothing to do with the unreliability and untrustworthiness of human beings other than himself. Good reasons, or good enough, though they aren’t what he’s become used to.

That, he thinks, was his first mistake. Getting used to anything. Leaning on anyone, no matter how lightly. _He won’t stay._

His second is leaving the door cracked open. That’s always been a bad habit of his, even he’s there ready to slam it like a trap.

He gets a text on Friday night when he’s just getting back from a game: _thirty minutes from yours_. It’s Neil, unsurprisingly. Unlike him, to come here without explicit permission, considering how they left things last time. Then again, maybe it isn’t.

He lets himself in with the key Andrew gave him, dropping his bag just inside the door. He seems unsure, but not enough that he breaks his usual habits - keys on the bench, jacket over top with his phone and wallet weighing down the pockets, shoes kicked off where he knows they’re liable to cause someone to break their neck. It’s only his face when he turns to Andrew that gives away any uncertainty.

“Hey,” he says, a tiny pinch between his brows. 

Andrew doesn’t answer.

Neil takes a few steps closer, into the lounge where Andrew stands in the clear space between the couch and the wall. He’d been sitting there not quite waiting, lost, until he heard the key in the lock. He permits Neil close, and then closer, though Neil stops before he dares to touch. His eyes on Andrew are a physical weight.

“I missed you,” he says, easy. “You haven’t been answering your phone. I thought that was my bad habit, not yours.”

“So you thought you’d fly out to tell me that,” Andrew says. 

“No. I was worried about you,” Neil replies, like that should be obvious. Like it rolls off his tongue easily, that admission of how he feels and what he thinks. 

“So you thought you’d come and try your hand at fixing me instead,” Andrew says, voice sharp enough to cut. The tone feels strange on his tongue - like he should be hurt, too, wielding a weapon by the blade. He thinks he might be.

Neil looks back at him, disarmed like he always is and yet still not bleeding. “I don’t think I can.”

If Andrew were to look down, he suspects that he might be the one with the knife in his gut. He turns his face away. For some reason, that answer is less satisfying than he thought it might be, for all it’s the right one. The only one.

“I don’t need to,” Neil continued. “You can do that for yourself. You have before. But you know that I’m here to help, right?”

“Are you?”

“Here, or helpful?” Neil asks, half a joke that trips flat over Andrew’s silence. “I think the first is maybe more likely than the second, but I’m willing to try.”

He’s saying the right words. His hands, held low at his sides, keep his promises. Andrew thinks about the feel of them - _too much, too much_ \- and, suddenly, wants. He thinks that this moment is more painful than the five minutes preceding a key turning in the lock. 

“Don’t pretend like there’s anything here for you,” Andrew says. _There’s nothing_.

He meets Neil’s gaze head-on, which should be a threat. Neil clearly doesn’t think it so: he’s looking straight back, eyes narrowed like Andrew is a puzzle to figure out, a complex set of plays that Neil wants to master.

After a moment, he says, “Isn’t there?”

They’ve had this conversation before, in reverse. Neil, once called nothing, has called Andrew home before. Andrew is in the midst of burning that house to the ground with hands he has no control over, but that question makes him pause, blink, breathe in and then exhale smoke.

He says, “You tell me.” It doesn’t come out like a question, but he can tell by the shift in the set of Neil’s mouth - soft, then softer - that he recognises it as one.

“I’m looking right at it,” Neil says. “That’s why I’m here. Remember?”

He is here, eyes bruised dark like he hasn’t been sleeping right but still patient. Still solid, which has never been a word that Andrew associated with Neil Josten until right now, with his own foundations shaking.

“Andrew, I’m right here,” he says, low and something like gentle. “I’m right here.”

His gaze when Andrew meets it isn’t guileless - it’s direct. Intent. A promise. Andrew is the one who gave him a key. He’d forgotten that it happened that way around, for a second there.

Neil reaches out towards him, and then waits with his fingers in empty space. _I’m right here._

Andrew doesn’t believe him now, but he hasn’t forgotten what it was like to.He’s the one to close the gap. 

At least a little hurt is something.


	16. Repetition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prequel to [Photography](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7727215/chapters/18309904).

The rhythm of late-night grocery runs always soothes Neil when he can’t sleep. He puts items onto the conveyer belt one at a time, the basket balanced on his hip and held steady with his other hand.

He left Andrew sleepy but not quite asleep, knowing that there was no chance he’d be joining him until he shakes off this jittery uncertain energy that he gets sometimes without rhyme or reason. Neil would wake him coming home, but that was unavoidable. Anyway, they’d had years now to get used to their particular insomnia-driven routines, and the shifts in sleep schedule dictated by the travelling of being professional athletes.

“We’re having a sale on the store brand,” the cashier says, holding up the packet of gummy worms to illustrate.

“Yeah, I saw that. My husband prefers that kind though,” Neil says with a shrug. It’s not like they can’t afford it, after all.

She has no idea who he is - that’s why Neil comes here. The entire place is staffed by people twenty-four and under, all with piercings and dyed hair and clothes that Neil doesn’t quite understand. They don’t look like Exy fans, though Andrew told him once that stereotyping like that is going to end up in horrible photographs of him being posted on the Internet when he least expects it.

She doesn’t know who he is. But he sees the warmth in her eyes, the tiny upward curve of her mouth at his words, and thinks _yeah. Me too._

 

* * *

 

 

Andrew leaves him under the eaves with a slanted look and a, “Stay here. You’re too slow,” before ducking out from under cover into the downpour.

Neil, who is barely back to weight-bearing on his right foot after a nasty ankle sprain, huddles back where the driving rain can’t get him. He has one crutch and is frustrated by the feel of it on his elbow, the time off it represents to him, but he’s even slower without it. 

“Do you need an umbrella?” There’s a woman leaning out the door of the restaurant they just emerged from to ask, her forehead wrinkled with concern. Just a stranger, and Neil is getting better and better at not immediately thinking the worse of them. “Or I can call a taxi for you? It’s just so awful out here.”

“My, uh - my husband is just getting the car,” Neil says, correcting himself from saying _partner_ at the last moment. “It’s okay. Thank you.”

_Thank you_ still sounds awkward out of his mouth, but she smiles like she doesn’t even notice.

At that moment, the Maserati pulls in next to him to idle. With a distracted nod, Neil darts through the rain and drops himself into the passenger side of the car.

 

* * *

 

Matt is in town for pre-game press, so Neil invites him out for lunch between his own practices.  They go to a little diner that he and Andrew frequent, where the staff know them by sight even if they don’t recognise them for who they actually are. That’s the way they like it.

“A different man today!” Maurice, the sixty-something with a soft spot for Andrew and his love of desserts, chirps. “This one is still handsome though.”

“Thanks,” Matt says with a broad grin. “That’s what my wife tells me.”

“No she doesn’t,” Neil says, right as Maurice says, “Oh, the pretty ones are always straight.”

“I think he’s being rude to you,” Matt informs Neil at that, which makes Maurice slap him lightly on the shoulder with the menus.

“It’s okay, that’s what my husband tells me anyway,” Neil says, making them both chuckle. Maurice hands over the menus and tells them the specials before he leaves them to choose.

“Andrew likes their ice cream,” Neil offers absently as he debates a cheeseburger or something healthier. It’s easy to order something that his dietician would be horrified over when he’s here with Andrew, because he always looks good by comparison. 

“Who’s Andrew?” Matt asks. Neil wonders for a second if he’s lost his mind completely. “Oh, you mean _your husband_? I forget he had an actual name for a minute there.”

Neil’s concerned frown turns immediately to a scowl. “Thanks for the support, asshole.”

Matt claps him across the shoulder firmly enough he staggers. “If you really wanted support, you would have asked me to be your best man, Josten.”

“We literally went to a courthouse and signed some papers!” They’ve had this argument so many times now that Neil answers by rote. “Anyway, I don’t call him that all the time.”

“Mm-hmm,” Matt says, drawn out and smug. “Not to his face, anyway.”

 

* * *

 

Helen, reporter for exy.com, says, “Did you just refer to Minyard as your husband?”

Neil swallows. He did say to Andrew _marriage_ _means no takebacks_ , and he guesses it applies here too. Even if ‘here’ is a post-game press conference where he was just asked for his opinion on Minyard the Marlin’s starting goalie and his half-game shut-out, and not his opinion on Andrew the man he married. 

“Yes,” he tells her, because he isn’t a liar anymore, and they never planned to hide this anyway. “I did.”


	17. Come to LA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long distance pining and [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adwHl-ST-OQ)

There’s only so much two uncommunicative people can say to one another, but it’s not the talking that they Skype for. It’s that Andrew can leave his laptop like a window into an apartment on the other side of the country while he does what the fuck ever.

It’s autumn but it feels like the height of summer in Miami. Andrew’s window is meant to be painted shut, but he pried it open before he even unpacked when he moved in. Now he’s perched on the sill smoking and trying to catch a nonexistent breeze while Neil potters around on his laptop screen preparing his nutritionist-assigned meal for tonight.

Neil’s gently swaying in time with music, subconscious but still a little sexy. Ask him to dance in a club - Nicky likes to try his luck sometimes - and he turns instantly into a rigid robot. Alone in his apartment he moves like he feels the beat in his bones, all grace.

Neil’s taste in music can best be described as ‘eclectic’. Years of running robbed him of any real familiarity with anything besides what played on the radio during long car rides, and it was only during his time at PSU that he started to explore his tastes. With, of course, the enthusiastic help of the Foxes.

These days, it’s rare that Neil’s alone in his apartment without the hum of something playing along because _it’s too quiet without it_. Andrew bought him a speaker system that runs off of his phone last time he was in LA with him.

He doesn’t feel the same way, but he knows what Neil means - years of living in close quarters in the Tower means the quiet solitude of an apartment is a sudden adjustment. Men like them, once used to change, get accustomed to stability at an alarmingly rate.

Neil’s fifth year was long. Andrew knows what Neil’s kind of quiet feels like - a pull that gets you in the gut when you’re alone at night and can’t stop thinking. Another feeling Andrew never thought he’d get to experience, and not one he likes.

Stability is a funny thing.

Right now, Andrew can make out the song Neil’s listening to clear as day. Smoke on his tongue, he hears _oh yeah I think I’ve had enough of this long distance love, need a little one-on-one_ and thinks not much of anything except absent agreement and tracking Neil’s hips, the sweep of his arm.

“Hey,” Neil says over his shoulder, drowning out _we’ve been running on empty, the engine is dying._ “Kevin called the other day, did he speak with you? He said he was going to.”

He rinses his hands and walks towards his laptop still flicking water from his fingers in a way that pisses Andrew off because it gets water fucking _everywhere_. All bright eyes that look a little tired, and hair that’s getting overgrown. It’s been weeks, and Andrew doesn’t give a fuck about Kevin Day and whatever it is he wants.

He grits his teeth, stubs out his cigarette, and comes closer. Stability is a funny thing. Neil is miles and miles away, but a few metres nearer to a computer screen and Andrew still feels the ground firm up under his feet.

Their entire acquaintance is built on proximity. Andrew knows all about closing the distance by now.

 

* * *

 

Part of the reason Andrew doesn’t listen to music much is because, with a memory like his, it gets caught up and repetitive on the inside of his head, tangled with whatever he was doing or saying when he hears it. 

Or tangled with whatever someone was doing to him: he has plenty of that kind of memory. Though these days it’s - less of problem.

Case in point: he’s currently in a taxi on his way out of LAX, still hearing _you’re running circles in my head_ mixed in with the bob of Neil’s head, the delicate bowed nape of his neck. The worst part is that Andrew fucking hates taxis, and the driver definitely recognises him. He’s silent, but Andrew keeps feeling his eyes on him through the rear vision mirror.

He stares out the window and watches the unfamiliar turn familiar as they get closer. When they arrive, he tips the driver generously and hefts his bag over his shoulder, slamming the door on the, “Hey, are you An-”

He lets himself into the building and takes the lift to the seventh floor. He’s got his key in the lock when the door opens, Neil wide-eyed on the other side.

“I thought you were someone breaking in,” he says, because of course he would open the door to a burglar. He fumbles to put down the kitchen knife he’d had behind his back - God help him - on the side table where he always puts his keys. “What are you doing here?”

Andrew holds up his left hand in the universal gesture for _wait_ , and goes for his pocket with his right. It’s the work of moments to make it issue the opening note, then _you’re running circles in my head, instead of bouncin’ in my bed-_

There’s a frozen moment where Neil obviously tries to make sense of Andrew here and that song playing. Then it clicks. He laughs. “That wasn’t some kind of subliminal message, but I’m not complaining.”

He leans close, closer, close enough. Up against Andrew’s mouth, he says, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Andrew replies. He can feel the shape of Neil’s smile before they really kiss, when it breaks into the wanting, welcoming thing he remembers.

When they pull apart, Neil is laughing again. “Did you listen to that whole song? Because if you’re trying for a romantic gesture, you might be missing the mark a little.”

“You’re the expert, right?” Andrew says, shutting him up with his mouth as he pushes him backwards into the apartment. 

The phone ends up on the floor. Along with most of their clothes. _They_ at least make it as far as the couch.


	18. Incompetence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Andreil + babies???

Aaron maintains that their move is a fluke. Katelyn’s curve of a smile indicates that perhaps it isn’t. Either way, the result is the same: for the first time since they graduated, the Minyard twins are living in the same city.

Andrew seems to regard the change with the same bored equanimity that he applies to most things, but when Katelyn texts Neil to invite them to their housewarming party he doesn’t say no.

They’ve bought a place out in the suburbs, across town from Andrew and Neil’s apartment. Andrew has to park down the street because there are cars everywhere centred around the driveway.

“Busy,” Neil observes, grabbing the bottle of wine off of the backseat. Neither of them are exactly connoisseurs, so they’d asked the shop assistant for a recommendation of a suitable housewarming present. Neil had, anyway - Andrew had paid.

“Ex-cheerleader,” Andrew replies, which is kind of rude considering that Katelyn is also a qualified and successful doctor, but also true. 

When they knock Aaron is the one to the door for them, though not the whole way. “Careful. She’ll make a break for it.”

That’s a familiar concept for Neil as the owner of two inside cats. He looks down expecting a pet, and instead sees a very small arm worming through the gap at knee height.

It’s a little bit like something out of a horror film. Neil manfully doesn’t step back, mostly because Andrew is right there.

“You need to invest in a front gate,” Andrew says, pushing at the door. Aaron is holding a pair of wine glasses which he passes directly to Andrew to free up his hands. Then he grabs the tiny, blonde owner of the arm before she can dart through the gap and hoists her onto his hip.

“Yes, thank you, I know that” Aaron replies with a scowl. “This is Tessa. Come in.”

“Aaron - oh, hi!” Katelyn says, leaning through a door down the hall. She has a spatula in one hand and a baby held in the crook of her other arm that seems to be fast asleep. “Come in, come in, shut the door before someone gets out onto the street. We’ve been meaning to get the front yard fenced off but there’s just too much to do!”

The last part is almost yelled from the other room, because she’s already disappeared back through the doorway. If Neil had wondered if she was any less of a sweet-natured whirlwind, that would have answered his questions. Once the door is closed, Aaron sets Tessa back down, takes back the wineglasses, and then instructs them to follow him through.

Katelyn is in the kitchen with another woman who she introduces as her sister, Marie. The two of them are full of questions, and they both have a surprising knowledge of recent Exy results which is apparently because Marie’s oldest daughter plays. 

“She’s out back, she and some of the others will probably come accost you later,” Marie says, and ushers them into the backyard where dozens of strangers are milling around.

That’s fine - Neil knows how to deal with kids aged eight and older, especially those who like Exy. What he _doesn’t_ understand is the ones younger than that, soft and unpredictable and unreasonable.

Tessa is eighteen months old and toddles very capably and very, very quickly. She also talks in a language that Aaron and Katelyn seem to have no problem translating, but Neil can’t make head nor tail of it. She seems delighted by the presence of dozens of strangers in her home, wending her way through the crowd at ankle height without the faintest trace of shyness.

That extends to Neil - she grabs his hand at one point and babbles to him, looking unperturbed by the fact that he just blinks back at her while he reaches for something to say. That gets a laugh out of the people around him, and a few _aw_ s that make his face warm.

“You can babysit!” Katelyn suggests, pink-cheeked and cheerful. Neil manages, through what he considers to be great strength of will, to not instantly refuse. It’s not that he doesn’t _like_ Tessa - it’s just that he doesn’t understand her at all, and he isn’t sure he’s old or responsible enough to be left in charge of her unsupervised.

They don’t know anyone there, but Neil can make passable small talk with the various doctors in attendance. Marie’s daughter Mel catches them at one point, but she has more questions for Andrew than she does Neil - she’s a goalkeeper for her high school team, and clearly dedicated to the game. 

She has a herd of younger boys and girls with her, around ten years old, and they ask Neil all the usual questions - _is it fun? Do you get hurt? Do you get to go lots of cool places?_ Neil answers, keeping half an eye on Andrew’s quiet conversation with Mel, watching the determined frown she wears as she picks his brain. 

Andrew’s expression doesn’t change, but whatever he’s saying gets a quick grin out of Mel before she goes to answer her mother’s call. Neil, who’s been standing off to the side alone but not wanting to interrupt, rejoins him once she’s out of earshot.

“You’re staring,” Andrew notes, accepting the glass Neil offers him. Aaron clearly remembers his brother’s drink preferences - he’d shoved twin glasses of bourbon and coke into Neil’s hands on his way past before without a word.

Neil doesn’t respond to the familiar taunt except to meet Andrew’s eyes for a long moment, like he’s making a point. “She seems keen.”

“Another addict,” Andrew replies, probably not quite as dismissive as he’s aiming for.

“You seem to attract them.” 

“That’s you you’re thinking of,” Andrew replies, sipping from his drink. 

“You haven’t gotten rid of me yet, though, so you can’t mind it too much,” Neil replies.

“Don’t tempt me.” As threats go, it’s weak. Neil feels the corners of his mouth turn up at it and the look Andrew gives him afterwards.

A faint whining noise is all the warning they get before Andrew stiffens and glances down. Tessa is attached to his legs like a tiny blonde limpet, face red and scrunched. She whimpers, lower lip wobbling like a threat.

Neil nearly recoils, but Andrew doesn’t hesitate. Handing his drink back to Neil, he scoops her up to his hip. She immediately winds a chubby arm around his neck and pushes her face into the front of his shirt.

“What’s wrong with her?” Neil asks, looking around for either of her parents. They’re nowhere in sight. He’s not ashamed about the trickle of alarm in his voice.

“She’s just tired,” Andrew says. His expression says _get a grip,_ and it’s not aimed at the toddler.

“How do you know that?” Neil demands. As far as he’s concerned, there are a thousand different things that could be wrong with her. Being tired seems like the least problematic of them, but it’s not like he would know.

“Common sense. I know you struggle to recognise it,” Andrew replies. “Hey. Stop that.”

Tessa’s whimpering has been increasing in volume, taking on a piercing note that’s almost but not quite proper crying. At Andrew’s firm tone, she leans back and seems to realise that this short blonde man is in fact not the one she was looking for, but just once who appears to be very similar. Still red and damp-faced but distracted, she blinks at him with giant eyes.

She asks, “Da?” The puzzlement in her tone is clear.

“Not quite,” Neil notes, waiting for the bawling to start again. She’s staring at Andrew’s face in puzzlement.

“You’d have trouble telling people apart if you were two feet tall,” Andrew tells him, and then says to Tessa, “Yeah, I’m not him. Come on.”

And it would figure that Andrew’s ease with dealing with kids and teenagers would extend to toddlers. Neil still feels blindsided as he follows them to the house. They nearly crash into Katelyn at the back door, and she seems to blink for a moment before she realises that no, that isn’t her husband, but yes, it is her child.

True to form, she takes it completely in stride. Maybe Neil is the only one surprised by the competence with which Andrew balances Tessa as he passes her over to her mother. 

“She was crying,” Neil explains, because it’s been years but Andrew still doesn’t talk to Katelyn if he can help it, though his civility has improved since college. Neil wonders sometimes whether Katelyn remembers that day in the library whenever she looks at Andrew. Wonders if she’s still frightened of him and just hides it better now. He does know that these day’s Andrew’ silence is out of apathy rather than anger, which is as close to acceptance as he tends to get.

“Yeah, it’s way past your bedtime, hey poppet,” Katelyn says to Tessa more than them, her arms curling her daughter into her body in a way that’s not protective but just welcoming. The warmth of the gesture makes something stir in Neil - he thinks of his own mother still with the distance that time gives illuminating her faults. Right now, he can’t help wondering if Mary held him the same way when he was that age.

Pressing her cheek to the top of Tessa’s head, Katelyn offers a smile. “Thanks, Andrew.”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, turning on her heel back into the house. Andrew mirrors the action to go back into the yard, lifting his drink - probably his drink, anyway, it might be Neil’s - out of Neil’s hand on the way.

Neil watches him go, and wonders. There are all sorts of things he still doesn’t know about Andrew, even all this time later, and Neil doesn’t care about it - they’re both entitled to their secrets. It just always ends up catching him by surprise the things Andrew can do, or has done. Vice versa, too: Neil sometimes gets a long and considering look over the things he lets slip.

A presence joins him on the edge of the deck, almost familiar but not quite. Aaron says, “So you caught the runaway toddler, I hear.”

“Andrew did,” Neil replied. “Or _she_ caught _him_. All short blonde men look alike from a low angle, apparently.”

He sees from the corner of his eye Aaron’s frown deepening, but he doesn’t respond to the gentle jibe. Having children has obviously mellowed him. It’s doesn’t feel that it was that long ago that he might have tried to remove a few of Neil’s teeth with his fist for saying something like that.

“You can babysit sometime,” he says instead. If he’s looking to panic Neil, he manages to do so immediately.

“Uh, I really don’t think we’re - I’m qualified for that.” He’s not sure about Andrew, but he knows that he certainly isn’t. He tries to imagine what he would do with a crying toddler or, worse, a crying baby, and promptly has to stop.

“Besides your total incompetence and my brother’s disbelief in his ability to feel genuine affection towards anyone other than you and those idiotic cats, the two of you are perfectly qualified.”

“When you put it that way,” Neil replies, not sure whether he should be offended or impressed by Aaron’s level of insight. Maybe both. “Why are you suggesting it, again?”

This time Aaron does look away from the yard and to Neil. His expression is exasperated but there’s no latent desire to take the comment back underneath. Nor is there any doubt. “They’re babies. Keep them warm, fed and safe and they’ll be fine. Even you two idiots can manage that.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Neil replies, half in seriousness but mostly just to be a dick, at which point Aaron blows out his breath and leaves like Neil has drained the last of his patience. 

“I think you signed yourself up for kidsitting,” Neil remarks on the drive home, just him and Andrew, putting him at ease after spending time with strangers. 

Here, it’s easier to imagine them as a pair of people who can be trusted with children. Surprisingly so. Especially when Neil remembers the easy way Andrew had reached for Tessa, quietly capable. 

“It can’t be any more difficult than dealing with you,” Andrew says. And yeah, he does have a point.

 


	19. Slip Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set immediately after [Repetition](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7727215/chapters/18806294)

The plan had been to drive back to the apartment separately, and by the time Neil fights his way free of the stadium the Maserati is long gone. The second Neil shuts the door of the A5 behind himself he’s dialling Andrew’s number.

The first time it cuts directly to Andrew’s answer phone, which is still the factory-set robot. The same thing happens the second time.

The third time, it rings. On the second, Andrew answers just long enough to snarl, “ _fuck off_ ,” before he hangs up.

Neil, who had been up until that point feeling washed out with dwindling adrenaline and something like relief, can suddenly feel his heart thrashing in his chest all over again. Rather than attempting to call a fourth time, he tosses his phone onto the passenger seat and pulls out of his space.

The roads around the stadium are still an absolute crush of fans both in cars and on foot, and he has to restrain himself from grinding his teeth as he joins the queue. His skin is starting to crawl with anxious electricity, and being stationary isn’t helping. He holds the steering wheel tight like that might steady him.

He hadn’t anticipated that he might slip up like that until he did. He can still taste the word on his tongue, sweet-turning-sour as the reporters in front of him stiffened as one like hunting dogs catching a scent. But he can’t deny that underneath the surprise at his own mistake, it felt…good, in the same way it always does to say that word.

Right now, all uncertainty, he doesn’t feel good. His phone ringing blares over the handsfree system, jarring him out of his thoughts and nearly into the bumper of the car in front of him. It’s an unknown number, so he ignores it. The next is Nicky, which he ignores too. Then there’s another couple of unknown numbers, then Natalee from the Marlins PR department. Neil doesn’t answer any of them until Matt’s name flashes up.

“Holy shit, Neil,” he says. “You didn’t think about easing them into it with a gentle ‘I’m gay’?”

“Hello to you too,” Neil replies. “Also, I’m not gay.”

“You’re in love with a dude and you married him. I’m sure there are plenty of journos capable of distinguishing between demisexual and gay, but I don’t think those are the ones you need to worry about.”

“I don’t care about the press,” Neil replies, which he thinks should be patently obvious at this point. “I’m not worried about them.”

“Well, everyone who you care about knows already,” Matt says, which is true - their current team has known for a while, and most of their friends are ex-Foxes or ex-teammates so have known for years. “But, uh, I would maybe stay away from social media for a couple of days.”

“I’m planning on that,” Neil flat-out lies. 

Matt probably knows that, because he says, “I’m serious, Neil. No one needs to read people talking shit.”

“Are they already talking shit?” It’s been like a half-hour maximum, but Neil shouldn’t be surprised.

“I mean, there’s lots of support,” Matt back-pedals. “But still. You know what assholes are like.”

“I know what assholes are like to professional athletes who come out, yes,” Neil says. “Just - _fucking finally_.”

The traffic is finally easing, which means he can do more than a crawl. Matt laughs over the speaker and the revving engine.

“I would say ‘agreed’ but I have a feeling that’s not what you’re talking about,” he says. “Where are you?”

“In the car trying to get home,” Neil clarifies. 

“Where’s Andrew?” Matt asks, like it’s suddenly occurred to him that Andrew could have been sitting in the car listening to this entire conversation. It wouldn’t have been the first time. 

“At home,” Neil says, and there must be a hint of tension in his voice because Matt goes quiet for a second. “He left - beforehand. I haven’t talked to him yet.” Because _fuck off_ doesn’t count, not even by their standards. Or maybe _especially_ by their standards..

“He’s not going to care,” Matt states, and then, “Wait, he’s not going to care, right?”

Twenty minutes before, Neil would have said no. Right now he’s still hearing the ferocity of Andrew’s voice echoing in his ears, and the uncertainty he only ever feels negotiating the twists and turns of relationships is boiling in his stomach. He can’t think of a way to answer Matt that isn’t just that uncertainty pouring out, so he doesn’t say anything.

“He’s not going to care,” Matt repeats. “But, um, if he _does_ …call me back, okay?”

“Yeah. I better go,” Neil replies. He’s getting close to their apartment building. “Have fun fighting people on twitter.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Matt replies, like he isn’t completely transparent. “Seriously, call back later. Dan’s out right now but she’ll want to talk to you.”

“Bye, Matt,” Neil says, and clicks off just as he pulls into the underground parking at the apartment and swipes the roller door open. It’s a level of security they didn’t live with before this place, but after Neil’s last few run-ins with the media it turned out to be a wise choice.

The Maserati is in its usual spot, and Neil takes the one next to it. Having two cars seems frivolous to Neil, but after his last car - the remnant of their time living apart - had been written off, he’d watched Andrew looking for another with the kind of intent he didn’t often show, and just never said anything. 

The elevator ride up to their floor feels both lightning-fast and not quick enough. Neil lost the temptation to run from his troubles years ago, at least when it comes to Andrew himself - in that particular respect, he’s been running headlong into things for a long while now. And that’s okay, because even at their worst Andrew is there to catch him.

He catches himself twisting his ring on his finger, and stops himself.

When he opens the front door he slides through the gap like he always does to stop the cats from barging their way out to meet him. Sir is right there with his peculiar yowling greeting, and gets gently pushed out of the way by Neil’s sneaker so he can get inside and get the door closed. They’re less rude with Andrew, probably because he doesn’t encourage them like Neil does.

He drops his bag and runs his freed hands down their fuzzy spines, feeling them arch up into it. The sensation makes him breathe slower like it always does.

When he straightens Andrew is leaning in the doorway at the end of the hall, arms crossed. The light from the kitchen turns him into a silhouette except for where it passes straight through his fine hair like a halo. 

“You just can’t help yourself,” he says, his voice a rumble.

Neil doesn’t apologise. He knows better. “It wasn’t intentional.”

“And God knows you’ve never backtracked in your life,” Andrew replies. His expression isn’t quite what Neil expected, but he can’t quite pick out why in the gloom. So he goes closer - running towards, not away. 

Andrew doesn’t back up. He says, “My phone hasn’t stopped ringing in the last thirty minutes.”

His face is inscrutable. Or maybe Neil’s gotten as stupid as Andrew says he is. Neil asks, “Are you angry at me?”

There’s a shift, and Andrew straightens. “Why would I be?”

“Uh,” Neil says. “Because I just outed both of us to the entire world? By accident?”

Another shift. Andrew says, gaze level, “I don’t care about that.”

And that lines up with what they’ve said in the past, when they decided this was all less a secret than it was _theirs_. Kevin has plenty of strong thoughts about athletes being out, but they’re both Court players with nothing to prove. Being out isn’t going to change much for the two of them.

On the other hand:

“That really isn’t the impression you gave me fifteen minutes ago. You know, when you hung up on me.”

There’s the slightest crinkling between Andrew’s brows, the only sign he ever gives of being puzzled. Then it smooths. He says, “You only heard what I’ve been saying to every reporter to call me since you opened your big mouth.”

“In that case, I don’t know why PR always complains about _me_ ,” Neil notes. At least when _he_ tells them to fuck off, he doesn’t actually _say the words_. Usually, at least. “So, you’re not - you’re alright with it. Okay. That’s fine.”

Fingers curl into the front of his shirt, pulling him forward to they’re standing right up against one another. The gentle collision sets Neil’s frayed nerves to singing, chasing away every uncertain thought from Neil’s mind. 

Andrew asks, “It’s fine?”

“I mean - it’s good?” Neil attempts, and then finally parses Andrew’s expression as amusement. “It’d be really great if you didn’t do this right now.”

“Do what?” Andrew asks, faintly mocking. “You’ve been calling me your husband to everyone with ears for months now. You think I’m surprised?”

“I have not!” Neil squawks. “You never -”

-  _never said anything_. Neil had presumed he hadn’t noticed, which in retrospect is probably stupid. That means he doesn’t care about it at all, or -

“- you like it,” he finishes, with a smirk out of nowhere curling his mouth. Andrew just looks at him, and a lack of denial between them is just as good as confirmation. Better confirmation is the way Andrew kisses him, hard and hot, one hand still caught in Neil’s shirt and the other possessive at the nape of his neck.

When they break apart, it’s an opportunity to catch their breath that Andrew doesn’t take in favour of kissing down Neil’s throat. At some point they’ve transitioned from standing together in the doorway to Neil’s back against the wall with Andrew’s warm weight holding him there. When Neil’s head falls back, it’s Andrew’s palm that stops his skull from thumping against the plaster.

“We’re going to have to deal with this,” Neil points out. His phone is silenced in his bag, but he suspects it’s been ringing nonstop since he last looked at it. “I didn’t wait around after - Natalee already -”

His train of thought, already fracturing, shatters entirely at the press of teeth over his collarbone. The slide of Andrew’s tongue afterwards is more inflammatory than it is soothing.

“Yeah,” Andrew says into the hollow of his throat, “You’re done talking for today.”


	20. Being Real

His last final completed – well before most of his classmates, but well behind the idiots who came, read the paper, realized they knew nothing, and left again – Andrew emerges into sun harsh enough to make him blink. It’s summer, and his sophomore year is done. He doesn’t have any plans for the break, but that’s not unusual.

It’s also not quite true. Neil, who also had his last final this morning, no doubt has something in mind for the next three months. Andrew just doesn’t consider _going where he goes_ to be a plan, because Neil isn’t Kevin and none of this is a deal anymore.

Things are different now. Andrew knows that. He doesn’t think about it as he walks back to Fox Tower, instead considering the possibility of catching up on some of the sleep he missed when Neil woke him at four this morning finally climbing into his own bed above Andrew’s. 

It’s warm outside but the interior of the building is cool, their suite included. Kevin is watching something on his laptop with headphones on, but he throws Andrew a glance as he comes inside before looking away again. Andrew ignores him in favour of heading towards the bedroom and his bunk.

Except apparently that’s not meant to be, for a similar reason as this morning. He has five-something of sleeping striker in _his_ bed, tangled into the extra blanket Andrew keeps folded at the foot of the mattress. He’s out, too, mouth open and not stirring an inch even though the bedroom door just slammed behind Andrew.

Breathing out something that isn’t quite a sigh through his nose, Andrew goes to grab a change of clothes and leaves again. When he slams the bedroom door a second time coming back, Neil stirs and his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks.

His face is healed, but still looks red and angry by his left eye. With his hair curling into his face and his mouth closed he looks very young. Like someone Andrew could break very, very easily. It’s a false impression, not least because Neil isn’t the kind of man anyone can break, but Andrew catalogues the differences between this and the real Neil anyway as he walks closer.

His eyes flutter open, irises darker in the dim light from the shaded window. “Andrew?”

It’s not just the change in colour that makes those eyes look softer. Unbreakable, maybe, but Neil Josten can be unbearably fucking soft.

“Move over,” Andrew says, and watches Neil roll closer to him to make room against the wall. He drags the blanket with him, curling into it so his face presses into the fabric.

Once he stills, Andrew climbs over top of him and mostly manages to avoid kneeing him anywhere important. Neil stays still and lets him.

Andrew doesn’t think he can sleep with Neil right there, so he presses his back into the corner and digs out his book from between the mattress and the wall. Renee gave it to him to read and it’s terrible, but she refuses to acknowledge his opinion in that dry way of hers unless he finishes the entire thing. Silently, he exhales and settles, with the wall at his back and paper under his fingers and Neil at his side.

Of course, now Neil is lying there rigid as a mannequin. Eying him, Andrew asks, “Problem?”

“No,” Neil says, which is better than _I’m fine_ and still just as much a lie. Andrew prods him in the spine with his index finger so hard he arches violently away from it with a squawk. “Andrew!”

“Don’t annoy me,” Andrew tells him, because for all he would deny ever feeling _irritated_ over something, if he was going to be it would be now, after two hours sleep last night and the entire long, long year before that. 

“I’m not doing anything,” Neil grumbles, before rolling over to face Andrew. He looks more awake now, and uncomfortable, his mouth curling down.

Andrew looks at him, and then asks, “Is it no?”

“No!” Neil yelps, and then jerks like a fish in a net when Andrew starts to move like he’s going to get up. “No, I mean - it’s not no. I want…it’s…”

Andrew goes still and watches Neil try to fight his way free of the blanket, which is hooked over his arm and then underneath his body. After a few seconds, he tires of the flailing and unwraps Neil himself. Neil goes still and blinks up at him, doe-eyed, like Andrew is doing something amazing. Andrew hates that look.

“Before,” Neil says quietly after a moment, “It didn’t matter if I failed a test, or whatever. We - I never stayed long enough for it to matter.”

These days, it does. Wymack is lenient, but even he can’t justify paying for an athlete who can’t pass their classes. Andrew has watched Neil more than once and seen the flicker of _it’s hard being real_ wash over him - it looks like him right now, tired and uncertain and stubborn as bloodstains.

Andrew says, “It’s too late now.” It’s not meant to be a comfort - it’s just the truth. Andrew doesn’t believe in regret, and Neil can’t do anything about his finals now. He also means _there’s no going back_ , which is another different kind of truth.

“Yeah. I know,” Neil says. His gaze shifts to where his fingers are tangled into the blanket, tugging at a loose thread. _It’s hard being real_ , he doesn’t say, but every inch of him screams it for him.

“Neil,” Andrew says. When Neil looks back to him, Andrew hovers a hand over his hair in silent question. 

“Yes,” Neil answers, and makes no complaint when Andrew winds his fingers through his curls and pulls him closer. It leaves Neil right up against him, his face pillowed against Andrew’s hip. It’s a position Andrew would hate, but after a second Neil exhales and the tension bleeds from his shoulder. Andrew feels the heat of his breath through his sweatpants.

“This okay?” Neil asks, one of his hands curling around the underside of Andrew’s calf where it rests on the mattress. Andrew hums an affirmative, his attention already back on his book.

 _Most_ of his attention. He can feel the warm cup of Neil’s palm and Neil’s hair under his other hand and Neil’s slowing breath on his hip, but it’s just Neil. It’s fine.


	21. Quietude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a prompt about whether Andrew ever makes Neil cry. A sequel to [Relapse](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7727215/chapters/18542089)

Neil flies back to PSU because he has to, but he desperately doesn’t want to. 

It’s not a familiar feeling. Even with the changes this year, with Andrew and the others graduated, Neil hasn’t ever thought of Palmetto as anything but home. As recently as months ago, he couldn’t consider the future without a tremor of trepidation at the thought of leaving it behind. 

Now, with Andrew retreating into a silence where Neil can’t follow him, it feels like his home - the one that isn’t any kind of house - is crumbling. 

He keeps hearing Andrew saying  _don’t pretend like there’s anything here for you_ in a voice like stone. That they’d kissed goodbye isn’t enough to erase the crystal clarity of those words from Neil’s mind, the certainty in Andrew’s every syllable. He knew before he went up there that things were getting bad, but it wasn’t until then that he’d realised exactly how bad.

The kind of quiet inside Andrew is a killer, and Neil knows it.

He’d said  _I’m right here_. Now, miles and miles away, that feels like a promise that Neil is breaking. He doesn’t think he can afford to do that, and he knows that he doesn’t want to.

He’s expecting Robin to meet him at Upstate Regional, so he’s surprised when a familiar but unexpected voice calls his name. Dan Wilds’ yell is distinctive less because she’s conditioned herself to pitch her voice to be heard over a crowd - though that means plenty of  _other_  people are looking at her - and more because Neil has been shouted out just like that more than he can even remember.

“Hey!” she says when he gets close enough, pulling him and his duffle bag into a brisk hug. “Good flight?”

“What’re you doing here?” Neil asks into her shoulder, in a tone more flat than he intends it to sound. Dan breaks the hug but holds him at arm’s distance for a moment, and even though she’s smiling it feels like she’s looking straight into his head.

“Visiting Coach. It’s been quiet around home,” she says, which is less a lie than it is a fundamental understanding of what ‘quiet’ is really like. Dan’s schedule is nuts. “I commandeered your car so I could get around, and I’m under strict instructions to bring you over to Abby’s for dinner.”

Neil wants to climb into his bed and never get out. Abby and Wymack both know why he left, as does Dan, and he’s not sure he can bear spending an evening with the quiet weight of their knowledge any more than he could if they were the type to ask questions. He says, “She really doesn’t need to do that-”

“Don’t think it’s out of the kindness of her heart. We’re the ones who are cooking,” Dan replies. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

She hooks her fingers into the strap of his bag and steals it, pushing his keys in his empty hand instead. He balances the weight of them in his palm for a moment before following her as she strides towards the doors.

Driving doesn’t relax him the way it does Andrew, but it’s something else to think about. Dan assists with the distraction by filling him in on the latest from her own team back home. Then she moves on to the Foxes: even though they have players now that she never worked with, she knows just about everything about them.

She’s a great coach. As much as it feels like sacrilege to imagine it, Neil can see her in Wymack’s place in the distant future. He can’t think of anyone better for the job.

When they arrive at Abby’s, Dan has to unlock the door to let them in. Neil realises when he throws a glance at his watch that Abby’s almost certainly at practice with the others, and feels a bolt of guilt over it. He should have asked Dan to take him straight to the court. He hadn’t even thought about it.

He thinks about the familiarity of drills, of his own voice loud in his ears, of control and the court in general, and abruptly realises he doesn’t want to be there anyway. The thought makes him blow out a silent sigh and scrub a hand over his face.

Dan goes straight to the fridge, dropping his duffel onto the little kitchen table. She pulls out a couple of grocery bags and puts them on the bench, throwing him a glance over her shoulder. “Come here and make yourself useful slicing all this.”

She perches on the edge of the table as he takes out a chopping board and pulls a knife from the block. He asks, “Are you just going to watch?”

She pulls an amused face at him. “I’ll cook. But I’m not starting to heat the pan until you’ve done at least half of that. You’re slow as hell, Josten.”

“Am not,” he replies, a rote response from years of this same argument, even though she’s right. The first time she ever accused him of having no ‘knife skills’ he’d laughed for obvious reasons, but he can’t fine-dice to save his life either.

He cores a red capsicum and starts to slice it into slivers. Dan’s quiet for a moment as he falls into the rhythm of the work.

“How’d it go?” she asks eventually. 

Neil doesn’t know how to answer that question. He’s instantly thinking of Andrew’s head in his lap as he slept, the curve of his arm loose at Neil’s waist. How he makes Neil feel like he’s doing the right thing but still half an inch from making a mistake he can’t recover from, and never more like that than over the last few weeks.

“It was okay,” he says. It’s not a question of whether Andrew is doing the right things - he is. He  _always_  is. He’s doing his job and not drinking and talking to his doctors. Neil could live without the knowledge of him in his car breaking the law at night, but he trusts Andrew. That means trusting him not to make stupid mistakes as well as bad decisions.

He’s doing the right things. But Neil knows what it feels like to do the right thing and still have it not be enough. They’ve both lived that. Neil hoped they wouldn’t have to again, but they’re Foxes. It’s always been too much to ask for.

“So he’s doing alright?” Dan asks.

Done with the capsicum, Neil puts it to the side and pulls out a head of broccoli from the bag. He stares at it for a moment trying to decide the best way to break it down. “Yeah.”

It’s not a lie. And when Andrew accused him of travelling there to try and fix him, Neil said  _I don’t think I can_. That wasn’t a lie either. It doesn’t feel anything like enough. 

“I feel like I need to do more,” Neil admits into the quiet. “I know I can’t. But I want to.”

He has to put the knife down. He’s liable to lose a finger otherwise.

“Neil,” Dan says, her voice more gentle than he thinks he’s ever heard it. “Hey.”

“It’s fine,” he replies. It comes out rough. “I’m just-”

 _Tired._  Even without saying the word, he feels instantly and openly pathetic. It sets his throat to burning. He can’t look at Dan, can’t look away from the tiles to the point they blur. 

This isn’t about him. Self-pity tastes disgustingly bitter as he swallows. But he’s exhausted, and he can’t control the way his hands shake even when he curls them into fists.

A warm palm drops onto his back, pressing between his shoulder blades. Dan’s tone is conversational when she says, “Yeah. It’s a real bastard.”

Neil huffs a laugh. It cracks through the middle. “What’s a bastard?”

Dan hums in thought. “Life? In general?”

“Yeah,” Neil has to agree. He unclenches his fingers, scrubbing momentarily at his face. When he reaches for the knife again, Dan beats him to it, gently hip-checking him out of her way. He ends up standing next to her watching her, feeling less awkward than maybe he should to hover. She’s right - she’s much faster than he is.

“After Matt’s run-in with the monsters, it took me a long time to realise I wasn’t just furious,” Dan says as she finishes the broccoli and starts on a pair of onions. “I mean, I was angry. Still am a little. But I was also frustrated that I couldn’t do more to help him. That I couldn’t just…I don’t know, lend him my will or stubbornness or sobriety. It doesn’t matter how accustomed you get to helplessness. It’s still awful.”

“I’m sure you did everything you could,” Neil says. He can’t imagine Dan doing anything less than that.

“Yes, I did. But I couldn’t fight his battles. He had to win them for himself. At the end of the day, all I could do was be there and give him something to fight for,” she says. “I just loved him really, really hard. And I think you’ve got that part down already.”

Neil doesn’t say anything to that. He fiddles absently with the corner of the grocery bag.

“I guess I got lucky because he won in the end,” Dan goes on softly. “Not everyone does. But you and I both know Andrew is one hell of a fighter.”

 _One hell of a fighter_. That’s certainly the truth.

Neil nods, and then says in a more level tone, “Do you want me to heat the pan?”

“Yeah, go for it,” she says. “But first…”

He looks up and meets her gaze head on. Her mobile face is set into serious lines, her eyes warm and concerned. She says, “Wasn’t that so much faster when I did it?”

He bumps her back with his hip on purpose when he reaches for the drawer where the frying pans are kept. “Yeah, yeah.”


	22. Too Drunk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Matt Boyd is such a good friend.

Matt’s still awake when he gets the text - in fact, it cuts off Dan’s dissection of their latest game mid-mumble. They’re tangled together in Matt’s bed, taking advantage of having an empty dorm room.

Matt gropes for his phone on the floor beside the bed, blinking at the harsh light of the screen. It’s from Neil:

_Can you com get me Andrew’s sleepin and I’m too drunk._

“What’s happening?” Dan murmurs, her heavy-lidded eyes blinking slowly. A year ago, she would have already been halfway to damage-control-mode, but times have changed. It’s really something to see her look so relaxed, miles away from the dedicated drive and determination she has to present to the world day after day.

“Neil’s been drinking,” Matt says, showing her the text. She smiles as she reads it, mouth curving up.

“His spelling,” she points out, because Neil would never deign to use anything other than perfect English even in a text. When he’s sober, anyway. “You better go rescue him.”

No one had been surprised that Andrew turned down an invitation to party with the Vixens. That Neil agreed to go without him - ignoring the teasing about making use of empty dorm rooms - was more surprising. He hadn’t seemed to think anything of it, though Matt had caught the two of them murmuring in the hall when he’d stuck his head out to farewell the party-goers. 

The two of them were so subtle, but they didn’t need to touch for Neil’s expression to give them away. And Matt had never cared to observe Andrew before last year, but Neil wasn’t the only one with tells if you looked carefully.

“Guess so,” Matt says now, untangling them. Halfway through he has to kiss Dan, so comfortable in his bed, drinking in her tiny _mmhm_. “You going back to your room?”

“Nah,” she replies. “I’m warm.”

“You’re hot,” Matt informs her, and gets a quick pinch in the side for his troubles. “Hey! Don’t damage the merchandise, lady.”

“Get out of here,” Dan tells him, pushing him off the bed with a laugh. Matt takes his clothes off the floor and puts them back on - it might save him from the inevitable glare from Aaron, resident clean freak, later. Potentially from jokes from Nicky, too. 

“See you in a bit,” he says, earning him a sleepy hum as he shoves his feet into his shoes and his wallet and keys into his pockets. He locks the door behind him.

It’s after 1AM on a Friday night, but there are plenty of people in various stages between sober and drunk around the Tower. Matt skips aside to avoid a bunch of field hockey girls teetering in their high heels, arms about shoulders in rows so they block the entire footpath in the parking lot. 

He has to hit the brakes of the truck once on the way to avoid killing half of PSU’s soccer team, but he makes it to the strip of bars and restaurants without any other issues. He drives slowly with his eyes peeled, and slows more when he catches sight of a familiar pair of auburn and blonde heads.

Neil’s waiting on the curb with his feet in the gutter and his phone curled in his lap. Allison is standing over him, arms crossed. They both look up when Matt pulls in next to them, but Neil is the only one to grin broadly at the sight of him.

Matt feels warm at that look. It’s a rare one, and probably related to excess consumption of alcohol, but he values those smiles more than he can really say.

“Matt!” Neil greets when he opens the door, drowning out Allison’s muttered _thank God_.

“Hi, Neil,” Matt replies. “Hi, Allison.”

Allison points at Neil, and then at Matt. “He’s your problem now.”

She’s tipsy enough that her chilly tone doesn’t quite cover the affection in her expression. Matt says, “Thanks Allison.”

“Thanks Allison,” Neil chirps, turning a big-eyed look on her. Without the grin he looks about fifteen years old. It’s stupidly endearing.

She waves the two of them off and turns back to the bar, where the door guys wave her straight in like the queen she is. Meanwhile, Neil sprawls into the passenger seat of the truck. Drinking seems to have robbed him of his stoicism as well as his usual precise athleticism, because he gives Matt the same doe-eyes he just gave Allison.

“Thanks for picking me up,” he says. “I know you were probably…I mean, you and Dan…”

He goes bright red like he’s just realised what he’s implying. Matt knows that Neil and Andrew have _done stuff_ \- Neil’s words - thanks to another drunken conversation concerning Matt’s concern about Neil’s happiness, but sometimes it really doesn’t seem like it.

“That’s okay, Neil,” Matt says. It’s the first time he’s really dealt with Neil drunk while he’s been sober, but he can’t say he minds it, especially when Neil squeaks out, “Sorry,” and then shuts up. 

He’s quiet on the way back, which is almost enough to convince Matt he isn’t _that_ drunk until he nearly falls on his face tripping on the curb. After that, Matt keeps him close enough to catch him before he bruises himself and earns Matt a bruise of his own from Andrew for damaging him. 

Up on the Foxes’ floor, Neil leads the way to the suite he shares with Andrew and Kevin and then stops short in front of the door to stare at it in consternation. “Oh no.”

“What?” Matt asked, mildly alarmed by deeply disappointed expression that has swept over Neil’s face. He thinks for a second that Neil is going to say something about Andrew telling him not to come back drunk.

“I gave Nicky my keys,” Neil replies. “Whoops.”

He honest-to-God _giggles_. Matt nearly chokes trying to hold back his own laughter, not least because people might be sleeping, and doesn’t quite succeed.

“You can sleep on my couch,” he suggests, voice strained with it. 

Neil’s giggle stops abruptly, and he frowns, his brow pinching.

“Yeah,” he drags out like he really wants to say no - and then, “Oh!”

The door has swung open. Andrew is standing in the doorframe with his usual bored expression, the TV on but muted over his shoulder. He doesn’t look at all like he’s been sleeping.

Neil says, “Hi.” There’s no trace of laughter or tipsy humour in his voice, but there’s plenty of other things. He slides past Andrew in the doorway, and Matt doesn’t miss Andrew’s hand reaching up to the small of his back.

It’s barely a touch. That means nothing, because the look Neil turns on Andrew makes it seem like he’s hung every single star in the sky. And Matt would never claim that he knows Andrew all that well, but he knows what it means to have someone look like that at you when you’re a Fox. 

Andrew’s expression might be the nearest thing to totally unreadable, but Matt has been watching him for a little while now. Andrew has a tell, and it’s his palm on Neil’s back.

“Go wash up,” Andrew says, his hand falling back to his side when Neil goes.

Once Neil has wandered from sight, Andrew turns and levels Matt with a look. It’s bored and implies nothing like _thank you_ \- he seems to be wondering exactly why Matt is still here. And that’s fine.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Matt tells him, and does just that. After all, Dan is waiting for him, and Neil is safe in Andrew’s care.

He’s back in bed when he gets the second text. _It’s okay, I’m home now._ Perfectly spelled, but an equally perfect indication that Neil is still utterly wasted. 

Chuckling quietly to himself, Matt sends back _ik, I’m the one who picked u up. Tell Andrew he’s welcome._ Because it’s just too easy, and he can’t wait for Neil’s embarrassed and hungover expression tomorrow.


	23. Atonement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst prompt fill from tumblr.
> 
> Warning for discussion of child abuse/child sex abuse.

****They’re in California, shaken and sore and smarting a little with a loss to the Trojans in semis that means that they won’t make finals. It’s softened a little by the fact that it’ll come down to who’s the best of the Lions and the Trojans - the Ravens didn’t even make semis this year.

Neil isn’t really thinking about that, though. He’s thinking about Jean, a familiar opponent in unfamiliar colours, who let Jeremy Knox throw an arm over his shoulder in celebration. Neil’s trying to decide how he feels about that as the Foxes make their way through the parking lot to their bus.

Someone says, “Andrew?”

Andrew, a familiar presence at Neil’s side, turns his head in Neil’s peripheral vision like he’s checking lazily for a threat - and then stops dead.

Neil skids to a halt too, The two of them are at the back of the group, but that doesn’t stop their sudden distraction from drawing the attention of the others. Wymack, always watchful, stops at the front and starts a slow-motion collision of Foxes one into the other.

Neil isn’t watching them. He’s looking at the girl who called Andrew’s name, a slight brunette pallid and uncertain even in the orange-tinged lamp light. He’s also looking at Andrew.

Andrew is very, very still. For all that the subtlety of his expressions can be difficult to parse even for Neil, it’s easy to tell when they’re suddenly wiped away. 

“I don’t know if you remember-” the girl says in a wavering voice.

“I know who you are,” Andrew cuts her off, and it’s a death knell. 

His tone is hardly ever telling, but the quickness of his answer belies his apparent bored response. It reminds Neil of a hand to his mouth to stop him saying something Andrew didn’t want to hear.

They’re in California. As far as Neil’s aware, there’s no one in this state Andrew cares about anymore, and certainly no one that he’d be pleased to be surprised by in a parking lot - no one who doesn’t come with a whole host of bad memories.

“I wanted to…I saw your team was in town and I…” the girl attempts, rushing the words out. “Can I talk to you?”

Her eyes flicker between Neil and the other Foxes, who are smart enough to not get any closer. She wants to get Andrew alone. That isn’t going to happen.

Neil turns to him and says in Russian, “Go.”

“Why?” Andrew asks in the same language. He doesn’t look at Neil. The girl seems to be quailing under his gaze. She doesn’t appear dangerous - that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the power to do so, even without the intent.

“Don’t you trust me?” Neil asks, almost-but-not-quite teasing. Andrew finally angles him a glance. “You don’t want to talk to her, do you?”

“No,” Andrew says. His dark and distant eyes flicker just dark, for a moment - like deep water, like stone - before he turns away. 

The girl opens her mouth to protest, but Neil stops her with an upraised hand. She swallows hard instead, watching him as he watches Andrew walk in the direction of the bus, winding past the others on his way.

“You’ve got five minutes,” Wymack calls to Neil just before Andrew overtakes him.

“Yes, Coach,” Neil replies. When Wymack goes, the others follow, though not without a few backwards glances.

Then he turns back. “Five minutes.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she replies, with a little bit of fire. Apparently she’s less afraid of Neil than she is of Andrew, or something.

“Consider me the messenger,” Neil says, which is a blatant lie because he has no intention of passing on a single word of this conversation to Andrew unless he asks.

She stares at him for a long moment, lips thin and hands shoved in her pockets. She looks young - eighteen, maybe a couple of years either side of that. Wary, but not with the particular kind common to Foxes. This is a kid who hasn’t been beaten over and over while she’s already down. Bruised, maybe, but not broken.

“He knows who I am,” she says, more to herself than to him. Then, “Tell him I’m sorry.”

Dangerous words to say to Andrew Minyard. Neil asks, “For what?”

She stares at him for a long moment. “My family fostered him when he was a kid. He’ll know.”

She’s young - too young to have a reason to apologise. Neil is suspicious by nature and nurture both, but he is suddenly and overwhelmingly certain that she isn’t saying sorry for something that she did.

“How old were you when you met Andrew?” Neil asks, because he can’t help himself, because she might be some kind of child psychopath capable of torture but he doubts it.

“I was five. I think he was seven,” she says.

_Who said ‘please’ that made you hate the word so much?_

_I did._

_I was seven. I believed him._

Neil looks at her again. He wonders how much she looks like her father, thinks about avoiding his own reflection in the mirror, and swallows the _stay the fuck away from him_ on the tip of his tongue. 

“You can’t atone for the sins of your family,” he says instead. By her flinch, it’s no kinder, but he hadn’t meant it to be. “It’s not worth trying.”

He watches dispassionately as the girl’s mouth twists. She doesn’t get teary, though. Maybe she’s a little bit broken after all.

She says, tired, “How would you know?”

He wants to say _you and I are more alike than you realise_. Instead, he says, “Google it.”

Then, because he’s not a complete asshole, “Are you safe?”

“I was never in danger,” she replies after a moment of staring at him like she’s trying to place him. She’s almost certainly wrong, but that she thinks so might just mean something. Even if it’s just that she doesn’t have a good imagination. “But yeah. I moved out last year.”

She might be living on the streets. She might simply be lying. But then, people who are generally in danger don’t take the time to hunt down their ex-foster siblings for the sole purpose of an apology. That takes a different kind of desperation.

“Good,” Neil says, and then, “Time’s up. Stay the hell away from Andrew, okay?”

He doesn’t give her a chance to reply, turning on his heel towards the bus. It’s a rental, obviously - even the Foxes can’t justify driving to California - and Wymack is waiting outside the door for him. 

“Trouble?” he asks, tone casual, expression anything but.

“No,” Neil replies truthfully. With a huffed sigh, Wymack steps aside to let Neil up the bus stairs and following him. His noisy clattering as he takes the driver’s seat and snaps at the freshmen at the front of the bus to sit down and shut up allows Neil to get down the aisle to the back without being questioned by the others. The looks are easy enough to ignore.

It’s standard bus, but the Foxes are creatures of habit - Andrew is in the back row. The one between him and Kevin is empty, but Neil only pauses to put his bag there before dropping himself next to Andrew.

He’s staring out the window, but he turns to look Neil over for a second with a quick assessing glance the same as what he’d give in the aftermath of a fight on the court. 

“You think even a teenage girl can beat me up?” he asks, for the sole purpose of making their eyes meet. 

Andrew looks at him - less stone, less distance, a little dark still - and says nothing. 

Neil wants to say _it was nothing_ , but Andrew knows that. He wants to say _they’re in your past where they belong_ , but that’s never quite true for people like them - in the grave or not, they’re haunted. He wants to say _forget about it_ but he knows that’s impossible.

_I was seven. I believed him._

Neil swallows, and says, “You played really well tonight.”

The shift from waiting stillness to vague exasperation in the lines of Andrew’s face is unmistakeable. Forgetting might be impossible, and Andrew might be haunted to sleeplessness tonight with memories, but distraction is something Neil can do.


	24. Selection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neil doesn't make Court. Andrew makes a move.

It’s worse because Neil isn’t expecting it. Instead of getting the call up he’s been hoping for - _waiting_ for - he has an almost-apologetic Kevin calling him three days too late, saying _you’re young. Next year._

Neil won’t give anyone the satisfaction of asking why, but he desperately wants to. He’s fresh out of the Foxes with a couple of NCAA championship titles under his belt, one of which he captained them to. His signing to the Hawks has him being called a rising star in the game, and they’re already winning. Not to mention that he’s playing better than he ever has.

He’s making all the right moves. It’s just apparently not enough to make Court.

The uncertainty of _why_ and _why not_ is more crushing than anything else, when it’s hard enough being in an unfamiliar city for the first time in years, alone.

And he feels alone. Unsettlingly, unbearably fucking alone.

Five minutes after he hangs up on Kevin, Neil calls Andrew. At this point it’s muscle memory to do so - when something goes wrong, he calls Andrew. Problems are usually more physical than this, but for all they’re both bad at talking they’re good at talking to each other.

“Hey,” Andrew says from the other end, which is the point Neil remembers who he’s talking to.

Andrew, who turned down the Court selectors in his senior year despite Kevin’s endless bitching, is good enough they offered him a spot again on graduation. As their sub goalie he’s shut out national teams from all over the world while he’s on the court, earning himself a reputation after only a year to add to the one he already had. 

“I,” Neil starts, and can’t go on. There’s quiet for a long moment.

Eventually and unusually, Andrew is the one to break it. “I already know.”

Of course he does. If Kevin hasn’t told him, it’s public record anyway. Everyone who cares knows that Neil isn’t good enough for Court.

Neil leans his forehead against the cool wood of the doorway in his new apartment, the one he made Andrew come with him to view to mirror the same way Andrew had done when choosing his. It felt like - something, to have a say in a decision so simple and so intrinsic. 

Living apart this year has been inevitable, with Andrew signed and Neil unable to turn down the lucrative and all-encompassing deal the Hawks offered him. The two of them being pro means even more schedule clashes than they navigated their way through last year, at least half Neil’s disappointment now stems from the fact that they would have been on the same team again for Court.

Court selection isn’t just glory, isn’t just the thrill of being the best - it’s playing on the court with Kevin and Andrew again, where Neil belongs. It’s travelling overseas to play other national sides. It’s being with Andrew at least fleetingly, sharing a hotel room on the other side of the world - being closer than opposite sides of the country for days or weeks.

That’s not happening, either. Andrew will be on the other side of the world, not just the other side of the country, and Neil will be here. _Not good enough_.

“No complaining,” Andrew says, because Neil has let the silence go on for too long. It’s a comment on the lack of complaining, not a warning not to. He means _you must really be upset then_.

Disappointment isn’t a familiar feeling to a pessimist like him - his expectations are usually low enough that they’re always met. But right now he’s feeling it like a hole in his chest, deep and echoing and strange.

“No,” Neil agrees.

“I hope Kevin said all the correct platitudes,” Andrew comments, with his typical level of bored derision. “He fought for you, you know. But even he doesn’t have that much sway over the selectors. They wanted Pierce.”

Liam Pierce is a Seattle-based striker who has two years of professional Exy to his name. Neil hasn’t played him, but Andrew has. 

“He’s slower than you, but has a better public image. Clean cut,” Andrew goes on. His tone implies very clearly what he doesn’t say to Neil’s well-tuned ears.

Neil would like to think selection is based purely on skill, but he knows better. Andrew’s selection - the two offers, as well as the entirety of Andrew himself, from the rumours to the truth of him - was hammered in the press, until Andrew joked that he was once again more trouble than he was worth to the entire team behind Court in a meeting. They had leapt to assure him that wasn’t the case, but clearly Andrew’s wondering about that now.

“It’s fine,” Neil says, even though it isn’t. Andrew’s silence speaks volumes on that very fragile lie. “It doesn’t matter. Next year.”

“Next year,” Andrew says, and it sounds more considering than anything else.

 

* * *

 

It’s not until two days after that Neil’s phone rattles on the kitchen bench loudly enough to startle him, signalling he has a message. It’s from Andrew: _channel 80._

Neil frowns. Andrew’s texts can be terse, but not usually quite like this. But he still feels only a trickle of concern as he reaches for the remote and turns the television on.

He should be used to seeing Andrew on TV screens by now, but there’s always something a little odd about it. It’s compounded by the particular way he acts in press conferences - aloof as a star in another galaxy, untouchable, but with just the faintest taste of daring aimed at the members of the press gathered on the other side of the table.

He’s sitting next to Michael MacKenzie, the coach of the US Court. Unlike Andrew, Mack looks somewhat flustered, though he’s doing his best to hide it. Neil, despite the trickle of concern rapidly turning to a flood, feels a faint taste of satisfaction at the sight.

Andrew’s unpredictability is a gross over exaggeration of the truth of the man, but right now Neil can see a little bit why some people think him so. As far as he knows Andrew has nothing to announce to the public, so no reason to call a press conference, and yet there he is with the head coach of Court waiting for everyone to sit down and shut up.

Once they’ve done that, he doesn’t waste time in greetings. Instead he leans forwards on his elbows so he can speak directly into the microphone set up in front of him.

“I’m leaving the US Court team, effective immediately,” Andrew says. There’s a moment of silence before the clamouring of surprised journalists all trying to speak over each other.

Somewhere in the kitchen, Neil’s phone starts to ring.

On screen, there’s a pause in talking long enough for someone to call, “Why are you quitting? And is it just Court you’re leaving?”

“My contract with the Panthers remains unchanged,” Andrew replies. He sounds as though he should be examining his nails, not staring blankly past the heads of the little crowd to some distant point. He doesn’t immediately go on, and the journalists wait expectantly like if they make a sound Andrew will walk out. If that does happen, it won’t be the first time.

Neil’s cell phone goes silent, and almost immediately starts up again.

“Why?” someone mutters into the quiet. It’s soft, but evidently loud enough to be heard.

“Court requires a lot of travel,” Andrew says, like he’s speaking to a particularly stupid person. “I’m leaving to stay closer to my partner.”

“Fuck,” Neil says into the silence that follows.

The journalists start shouting again. Andrew stands, forcing Mack to get up as well to let him out. Neil turns and bolts for his phone.

He has multiple missed calls from Matt, Dan and Kevin - mostly Kevin. He ignores all of those in favour of calling Andrew. He doesn’t answer on the first call, which leaves Neil clasping his still-buzzing phone to his chest and wondering how long it’s going to be until he can.

Their relationship isn’t particularly a secret - their teammates all know that they’re together, but it isn’t public knowledge outside of their bizarre and competitive and tight-knit world.

It’s not a comment aimed at outing their relationship to the press, though, or even an actual reason for quitting. It’s a challenge, aimed squarely at the Court selectors, and Neil really still, despite having just seen it for himself, can’t believe that Andrew was the one to make that move. 

It really seems more like something Neil would do.

Kevin’s trying to call him again when he looks back down at his phone, but Neil hangs up on him so he can try Andrew again. This time, the line clicks on.

“You…” Neil starts, and then shakes his head. “You think they’re going to offer a place on their line a third time?”

“Maybe I want to break Muldani’s record,” Andrew replies, casual as ever.

The thing about Andrew Minyard is that he hasn’t always known the exact value of himself, or not in terms that aren’t all neatly summarised by the word _monster_. But his skills on the court have been a bargaining tool for him before, too. Neil thought he’d grown out of that particular blackmailing technique way back in Neil’s sophomore year, but apparently it’s still on the table where necessary.

He wonders how susceptible the Court selectors are to it. He supposes they might find out.

“Next year,” Andrew says, and he sounds amused. And at least if they’re both not good enough - talented rejects, who carry around too much drama to make keeping them worthwhile - they can be not-good-enough together.


	25. (Un)Readable

It’s Nicky that makes Neil think about it, though not intentionally. 

It would be fair to say that the Foxes have taught him most of what he knows about…people, and about being around them, and how they can make him feel. Other than being afraid of them, that is - Nathan Wesninski taught him that early on, and he hasn’t forgotten the lesson. 

The rest, though, is all his family. Sympathy, guilt, affection, happiness, trust - they’re all things the Foxes have shown him, in word and deed. 

It’s the way that Nicky says _I love you_. Not to Neil and the others, though he does that both sarcastically and in earnest at the least provocation. It’s how he says it to Erik on the phone, quiet and honest in a way he rarely is. Like the bright and smiling facade has been pulled to the side for just long enough for him to say the words like that.

And Neil hasn’t been with anyone before Andrew, and expected to die before he ever got a chance to anyway. Love like that is a foreign thing to him, and he isn’t sure it’s a language he can learn. Not least because what he feels - quiet and all-encompassing and _his_ \- doesn’t seem like _that_.

It seems like it should be a bigger thing, to be in love - like the movies. But Nicky’s quiet words look a lot more like the feeling that sometimes swells in Neil when he looks at Andrew, when they kiss or when they’re alone together. It looks _familiar._

And Neil doesn’t care about hearing those words said to him. Andrew gives him everything Neil needs and wants, everything Andrew has, and that’s enough. It’s more than enough. 

It’s more - he wonders how often Andrew has ever heard it. He’s not the subject of affection, and doesn’t care for it anyway, but Neil hates to think that no one might have ever told Andrew that they love him. Or, worse, that the last person might have been Cass Spear, or someone else equally undeserving of Andrew. 

It’s not that Neil wants to say it, or hear it. But he really wants Andrew to know.

* * *

They’re up on the roof. It’s cold but clear, so they’re both bundled into their coats and Andrew is wearing the dark beanie that Renee gave him for Christmas. Neil drags the bottle of whiskey towards himself and takes a slug, hoping it’ll chase the chill out of him.

Andrew is smoking, lazily blowing smoke as he stares out at the darkening sky. The first stars are appearing on the horizon, but Neil isn’t sure whether he’s looking at them or inside. For all his face often indicates he’s blank as inside as out, Neil knows for a fact that Andrew is as introspective as anyone.

“Keep your eyes to yourself,” Andrew mutters.

Neil says, “You know I love you, right?”

He isn’t really expecting a response. He’s therefore surprised to get the frozen non-reaction of a reaction that he hasn’t seen from Andrew in a long time. 

“I don’t…” Neil hurries to say, and then cuts himself off. “I just want you to know. If you don’t.”

Andrew’s gaze flickers to him and then away again. He doesn’t say anything. Neil resists the immediate urge to keep talking, aware that he might just be digging himself a deeper hole. 

There’s a long silence. 

Eventually, Neil says, “What are you thinking?”

All through the beginning of their acquaintance, Neil used shorthand and guessing at Andrew’s thoughts, and he’s happy now to admit he wasn’t always right back then. But asking has never turned him wrong, and Andrew has never hesitated to answer.

He’s expecting _that I hate you_. It means that he’s the one surprised into stillness when Andrew says, “That you’re operating under the assumption that you’re unreadable again. And that you’re wrong about that.”

It takes a moment for Neil to gather himself. “I don’t think that.”

“You always think that,” Andrew informs him. “You’re always wrong. It’s predictable.”

“I’m not predictable,” Neil says, which is true. _Mostly_ true - it doesn’t always apply to Andrew. 

“You’re transparent,” Andrew replies, finally turning his head to look at Neil straight on. The steady boredom on his face is a sharp contrast with the surprise of before - one or the other of those is a lie. Andrew’s a steady-state reaction most of the time, but even he can’t adjust that quickly.

These days, he usually doesn’t bother. Neil reaches out for the cigarette pack by Andrew’s hip, watches him not flinch at the movement. He rattles it and then leaves it be. “Am I?”

“Very.” 

Neil lies back, his feet still dangling over the edge of the roof into space. The cold leaches through his jacket from the roof, but the view makes it worth it - stars just visible through the lowlight city haze and cigarette smoke. He says, “That’s alright then.”

“Is it?” Andrew’s mocking Neil’s tone from before, curling up at the edges with a coyness that sounds strange on him. It’s meant to shut Neil up, but Andrew should know by now that that’s not the way to do it.

“I told you - I want you to know,” Neil replies. He doesn’t know anything about astronomy. He just knows that the moon looks the same from wherever he sees it, and that staring up at it is saving him from meeting Andrew’s gaze right now. It doesn’t mean he sounds any less certain when he says, “It’s important to me.”

Andrew just said _you’re operating under the assumption that you’re unreadable_ , and also _you’re wrong_. Neil wonders if what he feels is so clearly written on his face, if it sounds under every word he says. Maybe Andrew is right after all. In this one respect, he kind of hopes so. Becoming predictable to Andrew isn’t so bad.

“All sorts of stupid things are important to you,” Andrew says, a dismissal that has lost its sting from repetition. A familiar old shield, one that Neil sees straight through. _Transparent_.

Predictability isn’t all bad. After all, Neil isn’t the only one becoming so.

 


	26. Like You Like This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My birthday gift for [ilgaksu](http://ilgaksu.tumblr.com/) in the [tiny stackable husbands](http://badacts.tumblr.com/tagged/tiny-stackable-husbands)'verse, pre-marriage.

“What the fuck is with you today, Minyard?” Wilson asks, somewhere between aggressive and honestly puzzled as he picks himself off of the floor.

Andrew shrugs, aware it barely shows under his bulky gear, and says, “Try harder.”

The ball’s already long gone down the other end of the court, cleared by Andrew with one hard swing. Wilson, scowling, turns and jogs back towards his backliner mark for this scrimmage. 

“Don’t break them,” Cooper says. She sounds amused from her position as Andrew’s other backliner, and more relaxed than usual. That’s probably because Andrew’s doing her job for her. “We don’t have enough game-ready strikers on the roster for you to start injuring them just because you got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

“Don’t let them get so close, if you’re concerned,” he replies, all boredom. Playing goalie means he doesn’t see much contact, but when they’re in his territory offence are fair game.

They might only be trying to get closer to the goal because shooting from a distance isn’t working out so well for them today. They can’t complain though - stopping goals is what the Rebels signed Andrew for. 

He left Neil warm and not quite awake in his bed for this practice. They better make it worth his while. 

“I notice you’re not denying that you’re in a bad mood,” Cooper calls, though her attention is already back on the ball. Andrew doesn’t bother to respond. This team is already overly invested in making friends with Andrew, and talking to them only seems to encourage them, no matter what he says.

He turns aside four more attempts at scoring before Rawlins knocks twice on the door to signal a change over, calling Andrew’s side off the court. He’s the last one out, which earns him the sole focus of the defensive coach.

“Good work,” Rawlins says. He’s a man of few words, which makes him considerably less annoying than most of the Rebels. “Your visitor’s up in the stands.”

Said visitor already has the attention of the rest of Andrew’s teammates, who are looking and muttering amongst themselves. They’re probably wondering whether he’s here to scout out their strategies. That’s ridiculous, because there’s no way Neil Josten can score on Andrew if he doesn’t let him.

Andrew hangs up his racquet on the rack and heads up into the stands, removing his gloves and helmet as he goes. Neil’s slouched in a seat about ten rows up, his feet up on the plastic back of the seat in front of him. He looks up at Andrew from underneath his eyelashes as he approaches.

Andrew gets a sudden and vivid sense memory of Neil this morning, fingers curled into Andrew’s shirt and his sleepy insistence that Andrew go to practice like his hands and mouth weren’t the things keeping him right there.

“Hey,” Neil says. His expression is characteristically serious, but his easy posture and the pink marks that Andrew left on his throat last night make him look younger than he is.

“I thought you were staying in bed,” Andrew says. Neil said that this morning: _I’ll still be right here when you get back_ , with a luxurious little stretch against Andrew’s sheets. 

Neil shrugs. “I got bored. Thought I’d come over and watch for a while. They were pretty casual about it.”

They would be - management knows about Neil. “So, are you feeling entertained now?” 

Neil reaches out and hooks a finger into Andrew’s jersey, pulling the fabric taut between them. Andrew can just about feel the attention of his teammates narrowing onto that very over-familiar action. 

From anyone else, it would be teasing. Neil’s face is ridiculously earnest when he says, “You’re playing really well.”

Andrew would roll his eyes if it weren’t for the gleaming intensity in Neil, the trace of heat that means _I like you like this._ Stupid as the reason for it is, Andrew likes that expression on Neil’s face.

“Yo, Minyard! Bring it in,” someone yells from the bench. Andrew doesn’t spare them a glance.

“Are you going to introduce me?” Neil asks, moving to stand like Andrew’s _yes_ is a given. If Andrew were a liar, he’d say that’s the reason he puts his free hand on Neil’s chest to hold him in his seat.

“Not likely,” he says, and when Neil tilts his head back, mouth open like he’s going to speak, Andrew kisses him instead. Neil makes a muffled _mmph!_ before going pliant and sweetly welcoming, his fingers in Andrew’s jersey just like a few hours earlier.

He’s rosy-cheeked when Andrew pulls back. There are several brave catcalls and the sound of hammering feet from below, which just serves to prove that all Exy players have a death wish. Fortunately for them, when Neil throws them a heavy-lidded glance and the corner of his mouth twitches, Andrew isn’t quite so interested in killing them.

Soft as Neil can be, there’s a very hard edge to the smugness of that smirk.


	27. Feeling's Mutual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sequel to [Like You Like This](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7727215/chapters/20997485).

_I know parties aren’t your scene_ , Cooper had said, _but it’s a team requirement. And you can bring your boy!_

Andrew’s ‘boy’ isn’t the type to party either, but his interest in Andrew’s teammates almost rivals their curiosity about him. Andrew never had any intentions of passing on the invitation, which is probably why Cooper ended up going around him and to Neil directly.

That’s why Neil is here in New York at the Rebels’ New Year’s Eve party, sliding into the gap at Andrew’s side and handing over one of the drinks he just collected from the bar. _We just have to stay until midnight_ , Neil had said earlier as he haphazardly looped his tie around his neck up in their hotel room.

He didn’t do a neat job on the knot - it looks that way now because Andrew has righted it into something suitable for the elegant tailored lines of the suit he’s wearing. Twice. Andrew messed it up in the middle himself, in order to wipe the amusement off of Neil’s face.

Right now, Neil’s somewhere between his cool business face and tipsy, caught up in the camaraderie of the Rebels. They’re nothing like the Foxes, but there’s a taste of the inclusivity of Wilds’ lot that Neil has never been able to resist. That’s probably why he’s drinking more freely than he usually would around near-strangers, his shoulders loose with it as he presses warm into Andrew’s side.

Andrew doesn’t care for the Rebel offensive line, but he can deal with defence. Cooper seems intent on squiring him around for the night - probably so he can’t leave early - but she also seems to know that his tolerance is dependant on the people around him. For that reason they’re in a huddle in one corner, rarely interrupted by the glittering sponsors this event is really for and murmuring amongst themselves.

They’ve already discussed the Fox’s fall season in detail, the one guaranteed ice-breaker topic for conversations with Neil, as well as the rest of the NCAA tops teams. It’s a sign of spending too much time with Kevin that Neil speaks in such a complimentary way about the Trojans. They get his patented expression of stone at mention of the Ravens, but they’re aware enough to move on when they.

That merely means they’ve done some research beforehand, of course. Either way, after a few hours and quite a lot of champagne, they’ve finally moved away from discussing Exy and onto people-watching.

“Look at that one,” Cooper says, flicking her fingers over Andrew’s shoulder. He doesn’t bother looking, but the others do. “I bet he’ll try grope my ass at some point after midnight. He looks like the type.”

Neil hadn’t turned either - too busy looking at Andrew still - but he does at that. Andrew can make out the twist to his mouth from the corner of his eye. “I’ll break his wrist if he tries.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Cooper says. She looks genuinely delighted over the offer. Exy players are all the same, it seems - they love a decent threat of violence. Neil grins at her, uninhibited enough that all his teeth show. “Minyard, this one can stay. I like him.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” Neil replies, which is how Andrew knows that he’s less tipsy than he is well on his way to drunk. It’s not even midnight yet. Thankfully the others aren’t quite sober either, but they know a soft spot when they see one. 

Neil got himself into this mess, though. 

Anita, the Rebel’s starting defensive dealer, says to Neil, “I like your tie, by the way.”

“Oh, thanks,” Neil replies cheerfully. “Andrew bought it for me.”

If Andrew were the type, he’d feel a sinking sensation at that. Especially when Neil goes on with, “We match, see?”

Even after a win, Andrew hasn’t ever seen this group of people look so delighted. Cooper smothers a laugh behind her hand - Pierce and Shearer are smiling outright.

“You do match,” Anita agrees. “They’re nice colours. Where do you buy your suits?”

Neil blinks, guileless. “Um…Andrew?”

He couldn’t be doing a better imitation of Andrew’s kept man if he were trying. “Yours is Hugo Boss.” The deep dark red of it, a purer shade than his auburn hair, looks suitably unique on him. A tie the same colour stands out against the charcoal of Andrew’s own suit.

“Does he pick out all your clothes?” Pierce asks Neil good-naturedly. When Neil showed up to practice a while back, Pierce had clumsily assured Andrew that none of the Rebels cared about Andrew’s orientation before anyone else. It’s only turned out to be a lie in terms of their fascination with Andrew’s relationship.

“Not all of them,” Neil replies. “Just the nice ones.”

He’s so clueless. Andrew wishes they would make almost-undetectable death threats instead, because in that case Neil would have shut up and made a break for it fifteen minutes ago.

“He has excellent taste,” Cooper says, her voice squeaking on a giggle.

“Yeah,” Neil agrees, fidgeting with the hem of his suit jacket as he looks down at himself. When he looks up he looks straight to Andrew, his cheeks pinking with a blush. “I think so.”

Andrew could say that he’s changed his tune over the years, maybe remind him of an outfit that ended up stuffed in a toilet in Columbia, but it would be too easy. There’s no way he will be embarrassed about this. He’s completely earnest, as he always is with Andrew. On the other hand, if he keeps talking Andrew might have to kill him, and _Exy team’s New Year Celebrations End in Murder-Suicide_  likely isn’t the headline the Rebel management team were hoping for after this party.

Meadow, one of the second line strikers, appears at the fringe of their circle. “The fireworks are going to start in a bit, if you guys want to get a spot by the windows.”

“Thanks,” Cooper says to him absently, and then to Andrew, “We’re continuing this chat later. I need to know more about men’s fashion.”

“Making a foray into cross-dressing?” Shearer teases her, before his smile falls off his face. “Not, um, that I have a problem with that. Obviously.”

“Fuck off,” Andrew tells them both, letting Neil pull him away by the hand towards the windows.

The entire room of people counts down to midnight with the lights turned off so they can see out the windows better. Andrew is sure that plenty of couples take the opportunity to kiss in the dark, but he settles for winding an arm around Neil’s shoulders. 

While they watch, fingers curl into his and interlock, and Neil’s head falls back to his shoulder. By the time the lights flicker back to life with a smatter of cheers and clapping, they’re not touching anymore, but Andrew can still feel the ghost weight of Neil’s head against his collarbone.

They don’t stay long after that. The others only get a chance to wave at them through the crowds before they go up to room booked in Andrew’s name tonight. It’s fancier than their usual, though that’s because it’s organised through the team - there are Rebels sleeping on either side of them tonight.

Andrew showers, leaving Neil clumsily dismantling his suit into pieces that will no doubt be wrinkled to hell tomorrow after a night on the floor. By the time he comes out in a rush of steam to hang up his own suit, Neil is burrowed underneath the duvet in a quiet lump. He isn’t asleep yet, turning his head to watch Andrew walk across the carpet.

“I like your team,” Neil murmurs half into the pillow. In the lamplight, his eyes are luminous, even half-closed with drowsiness. Andrew flicks the light off and slides into the bed, feeling the shift of Neil’s weight as he moves closer.

“Go to sleep,” Andrew recommends. They aren’t touching - Neil’s drunk, and even now they usually don’t like this - but Andrew can feel the heat of his body at a distance of a bare few inches.

“They’re nice,” Neil mutters. “And they like you, Kristen was telling me-”

Andrew is going to smother him. “Be quiet.”

Neil is a invasive presence, worming his way into every aspect of Andrew’s life in his attempts to know every single part of him. That’s the only explanation for the ease with which he reaches out and squeezes Andrew’s hand where it lies between them on the mattress, no groping around even in the pitch darkness.

“Good night,” he whispers, and then lets go again. He’s been asleep for a while, breathing deep and even, before Andrew’s skin forgets the feel of his fingers.

* * *

Team breakfast gets pushed back in the morning to brunch, in order to accomodate the hangovers that go carefully unmentioned to keep up an aura of professionalism. Andrew, who doesn’t even have a dry mouth, ventures down to the hotel restaurant alone and finds the table set for the team and their partners in attendance with a full buffet. The only other occupants are Pierce, Wilson and Cooper, who look barely awake.

He bypasses them without a greeting to serve himself some food, then backtracks and pulls out a seat next to them. They’re busy gossiping and don’t bother trying to draw Andrew into the conversation, having gotten used to his silence by now. By the time he’s halfway through his plate of food, several more Rebels have emerged, blinking and varying degrees of healthy, so that the table starts to fill.

Cooper turns to look at him, leaning back in her seat. “You two left early last night,” she says not quietly enough, and with the edge of a grin.

Andrew barely raises an eyebrow in reply. She continues, “I brought ear plugs with me, but we didn’t get in until after three. You guys were probably asleep by then.”

Teasing like this is common to the Rebels, but Andrew has never been the focus of it before. He’s pretty sure at least part of the team’s interest in Neil is a fascination with the person who Andrew lets that close. It turns out he isn’t a murderous goal-keeping robot after all.

Andrew doesn’t care. The Foxes never miss a chance to make a sex joke, which is annoying but also eventually stopped setting the back of his neck to prickling. Exposure therapy in practice, Betsy would say. He thinks that someone taking it too far might still end up with a knife to their throat, but it’s been a while and he wouldn’t be here if he thought these people were the type.

“Hey,” comes from behind him, accompanied a moment later by a hand on his shoulder. Neil uses it like a handhold as he slumps into the empty chair at Andrew’s side. He’s procured himself a cup of coffee but nothing to eat.

Andrew knows what Neil looks like this morning - he saw him barely stirring in bed, rumpled and heavy-eyed and sporting a small collection of pink-purple marks on his throat from their interlude yesterday before the party, exposed by the lower collar of his t-shirt. He watches Cooper look Neil up and down instead of looking himself.

“Good night?” she asks, smile broadening. Her tone is salacious.

“Mmph,” Neil replies into his coffee mug. “I’m eating and going back to bed. Maybe thanking whoever organised late checkout.”

He doesn’t look hungover, even though he definitely is. He looks well-fucked, sleepy, and in good humour, smiling at Andrew as he levers himself up again on his shoulder.

That’s what he _looks_ like. In reality, it has nothing to do with sex. Neil has looked like that since he woke up, since he leaned across the mattress and kissed Andrew with a mouth that tasted like the place wine went to die and said _I like to wake up next to you_. Even the frown that Andrew earned when he asked if Neil was still drunk was short-lived.

Andrew still doesn’t care. She and the others can and will think what they like, no matter what either of them say.

“He’s so cute and oblivious,” Cooper sighs once Neil’s gone, before giving Andrew a look. “He’s way too good for you. You better keep him bringing him around.”

“I can’t get rid of him,” Andrew replies, which is the absolute truth.


	28. Everyday Ways to Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cross-posted from tumblr.
> 
> Andrew doesn't have nightmares like Neil does.

Andrew doesn’t have nightmares like Neil does. He doesn’t jerk awake panting, doesn’t take minutes to shake his way down from the sick adrenaline that his own subconscious triggers. He doesn’t scream, doesn’t thrash, doesn’t bolt afterwards like the runner he swears he isn’t. 

When a therapist pre-Bee asked him about nightmares, Andrew told him that there was nothing he could dream about that was worse than what he’d lived through. He said it to shock, with the sharpest edge of his drugged humour, and refused to say anything else afterwards. There was another shrink across the desk not long afterwards.  

He was lying anyway. There’s always something worse. But nightmares have never a problem for Andrew.

Neil has survived the yakuza. He’s survived his own father’s dedicated attempts at killing him, and come out of it scarred and with an even shittier attitude than before. He survived whatever came before that on the run, the marks clear as day on his skin.

He’s a cat with nine lives who must have used up eight of them. It hasn’t made him more careful. He’s a reckless asshole who balances on the edge of buildings, who drives a hair over the speed limit with one hand easy on the wheel, who can’t open his mouth without daring someone to break him. Who doesn’t even seem to realise he does any of that.

A fall, a crash, a single hit could wipe away everything that is Neil Josten. Neil can’t seem to stop flirting with them, less self-destructive than he is purely ignorant of the fact of his own mortality.  

Self-destruction isn’t the only kind of destruction, of course. There are plenty of regular, everyday ways to die.

And it turns out that Andrew has a problem with that. Not least because he can’t stop _dreaming_ about it.

Because no, Andrew doesn’t have nightmares like Neil does. What he has is the creeping certainty that any day now Neil is going to be destroyed out of carelessness, his or someone else’s. And that seems to be bleeding over into his sleep, with grey empty dreams like ashes. Ones that leave him awake in the early hours of the morning, haunted by the idea of being alone even when Neil is right there beside him.

Andrew long since adjusted to the idea that Neil being gone can shake him - or _resigned himself_ might be a better term for it, since he held Neil’s abandoned bag in Binghampton and realised what that could do to him. It’s just never been like this.

There’s not much point in being afraid. But Andrew’s been telling himself that as long as he can remember, and it’s never worked. For him there’s only control, and that only stretches so far with Neil.

They’re driving through from Atlanta to New York, hours of smooth asphalt disappearing behind the Maserati as more rolls out in front, when Neil says, “Let me drive?”

“No,” Andrew says. 

It’s hardly the first time Andrew has said no to Neil. He accepts it without comment, shuffling in his seat so he can lean his head in the seatbelt. Andrew can feel his flickering gaze cross over him more than once.

After another two hours, Neil yawns and repeats, “Let me drive now?” It’s less a question than a command, this time. It’s been eight hours, and even the Maserati’s luxurious seats can’t prevent the neck crick that comes from sitting with hands at ten and two for so long, or the inevitable numb ass.

“No.” The only one of them who has ever been in a car crash is Andrew, and that barely counts. It just means that Andrew knows car crashes are very, very easy ways to die. 

Neil’s attention settles on him this time and doesn’t waver. “Pull over somewhere. I’m hungry.”

That’s an acceptable proposition. Andrew navigates them off the road and into a roadside diner the same as the many others they’ve visited after years of road travel whenever they can string together enough days to permit the trips. As ever, the Maserati looks out of place amidst Japanese imports and off-colour pickups and plain American-made sedans. Andrew parks it at the far end of the lot where opportunistic assholes will have to work harder to ding the paint job.

Andrew has to pop his shoulder when he climbs out, feeling the release trickle down his spine. Moving hurts but feels good. He’s tense. Neil, who wanders around to the driver’s side of the car, isn’t helping.

“Hurts?” he asks in a low voice, hand hovering over Andrew’s shoulder from behind. A few years back, he wouldn’t have dared approach Andrew from behind, let alone make an offer like this without words. 

“Stiff,” Andrew comments. Neil’s hand falls, his thumb rolling over the rigid knot of tension where his neck meets his shoulder. Old injury has become lifelong niggle, but it’s only an issue when Andrew pushes himself. They’re out of sight, so Andrew lets him prod and dig until muscles relax and smooth under the skin.

“You should see the physio when we get back,” Neil clucks, prodding becoming more like stroking. Andrew can imagine his pinch-browed frown without seeing it. 

“Worried I won’t be able to play?” Andrew asks, which earns him a single tap on his collarbone from Neil’s index finger. Then his hand lifts off, and he edges around Andrew to stand in front of him instead. True to Andrew’s prediction, he’s frowning.

“What’s going on with you?” he asks, leaning his hip against the Maserati. It’s hot out - Neil won’t be able to stay outside long without burning, Andrew notes absently.

“Nothing.” _Nothing you can do anything about._

“Your entire body is like concrete, you’ve been sleeping like shit, and you’re being weird,” Neil says, which merely proves that he’s only observant when Andrew doesn’t want him to be.

Andrew’s eyebrows rise. “Being weird?”

Neil matches him. “Being weird.” His expression says _you’re being a control freak, which you always are, except not always with me_. 

Andrew misses the less-familiar days when Neil would have just taken this in stride and ignored it, or at least been quieter about it.

“Whatever it is, if you won’t talk to me, at least talk to Bee or Ryan,” Neil suggests. The sun washes his eyes to the point of transparency, but his focus is absolute.

There’s nothing to say. Andrew is the last man in the world who would be willing to waste his breath voicing a – a fear, especially one that no one can do anything about. “I thought you were hungry.”

It’s better than _stop looking at me_. Neil, after a moment, looks from Andrew to the restaurant over his shoulder and then back again. His, “Yeah,” is more acquiescence than anything else. It means _I’ll bring this up later_. There are times Andrew is grateful that Neil exhibits that kind of brutal stubbornness, but this isn’t one of them.

They go eat, and then get back on the road with Andrew in the driver’s seat. They go to New York. There’s no such thing in Andrew’s vocabulary as a false sense of security, but it does take Neil four days to bring it up again. That’s nearly long enough for someone who doesn’t know him to think he might have either forgotten or given it up as a bad job.

It’s 4AM and Andrew had thought he’d left Neil sound asleep in bed fifteen minutes ago when he got up, but he can hear the soft sounds of movement behind him where he’s blowing smoke out of the open window.

It looks like he feels, tastes like the opposite. It always has - that’s why he picked up the habit in the first place. Nights like this, he remembers that first inhale vividly, the subtle alchemy that somehow made him a little more real with every indrawn breath.

Apparently a shift in location means nothing to his subconscious – he’s still dreaming.

“Move over,” Neil says. It’s warm out but he’s wearing a hoodie even so. It even has his own name on it for once. Andrew moves over on the couch that he’d pulled up to the window sill, dragging his elbow along the wood of it.

Neil drops into place beside him, rattling the pack of cigarettes but not taking one. He doesn’t look like he’s been having a nightmare - he’s too calm for that. Andrew’s the one who wakes quietly.

Andrew also isn’t the only one who knows that. Neil says, “What’re you dreaming about?”

He gave up on ‘if you want to talk about it…’ a while back, mostly because Andrew never wants to talk about it if given a choice. That basic fact is only outweighed by his unwillingness to lie to Neil - they haven’t got this far since Neil’s freshman year through untruths. They also haven’t got this far because Neil is willing to let Andrew sink into silence.

Neil waits. After a couple of minutes, breathing slow, Andrew gives in to him and his expectant quiet.

He says, “You.”

“Me, what?” Neil asks, and then subtly draws in a breath. “Hurting you?”

He’s always quick to jump to conclusions. Andrew thinks, _for fuck’s sake_. He says, “Don’t be an idiot.”

Another indrawn breath, and Neil’s brow crinkles and smooths and crinkles again in Andrew’s peripheral vision as he reaches for words that won’t get a snap. He says, low, “What about me?”

Andrew turns his head and looks him straight on, eye to eye. The dim glow of street lamps from below isn’t particularly flattering on anyone, Neil included. Too orange and skinny in the light, fidgeting a little with the edge of the cushion, he is unmistakably alive. 

“Keep guessing,” Andrew says, and it comes out harsh. Neil takes it like a punishment, like he always does when he thinks he deserves it. It’s deeply irritating, but Andrew doesn’t say as much. It’d be a waste of breath.

There’s a long silence. Then Neil says, “I don’t think I need to.”

Andrew feels the brush of fingers over his left hand where it’s loose at his side. Then Neil turns and buries his feet under Andrew’s thigh, which is a much more irritating and also much more real sensation. It’s wordless reassurance, and it doesn’t work because he can’t make those reassurances to Andrew, but it’s something.

Resignation used to be so much easier. Andrew’s not quite sure when he lost that skill. Maybe back when he looked at Neil, broken after Baltimore but still breathing, and thought _it’s already too late for me_.

“I won’t make promises I can’t keep,” Neil says. _That_ should be the opposite of reassuring - somehow it’s not. 

His toes are cold. He’s here right now. It’s something.


	29. Demolition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An angst fic for wolfsbanepunch's birthday. Warning: deals with the aftermath of Aaron's trial, some discussion of rape.

The first time Neil ever called Betsy was because of Andrew Minyard. He has nothing to say to her still, so the second time is, too.

“Neil?” she says, which means she’s saved his number to her cell phone. The idea that she expected him to call her again makes him pause for a moment, his train of thought suddenly derailed. Betsy doesn’t speak into the silence, and doesn’t hang up on him.

“I don’t know what to do,” Neil blurts, and then closes his eyes. “I mean…”

He expects her to jump on that slip and dissect it. However, Betsy hasn’t earned Andrew’s respect because she makes assumptions. She says calmly, “About what?”

“About Andrew,” Neil says.

It’s been two weeks since the trial ended. Aaron went free, but the entire experience was like living through a natural disaster. The kind you walk away from and still aren’t sure you’ve survived, battered and shaken to the core and still seeing all of it in your sleep. 

They’re Foxes: they’ve all lived through the worst experiences life has to offer. Neil, who is well-versed in suffering and helplessness and loss, is finding that watching the people you care about in pain is worse than all those things.

He can’t stop thinking about Andrew in the witness stand, speaking in his slow clear voice to a closed court. He can’t forget the weight of Andrew’s eyes fixed on him, turning him into the anchor that he’s never really been. And he certainly can’t forgive Cass Spear, who cried for the wrong man even after hearing that steady recitation of the crimes Drake committed against Andrew.

It was unbearable. He keeps seeing that reflected in Nicky and Aaron’s faces, and Kevin’s too. It’s been weeks, and they’re still dragging around the memories like chains.

In fact, the only person who seems unperturbed by the ordeal is Andrew himself. 

“What makes you think you need to do anything about Andrew?” Betsy asks. Neil wonders if she’s humouring his awkward word choice, but he doubts it. He can’t do anything for Andrew - he’s just certain he can do something _for_ him. 

The issue is that he doesn’t know _what_.

“With…everything,” Neil says. It’s clear what he’s referring to. Betsy was there. “I don’t know, I just…how can I not?”

He means _I care about him_. He means _I want to help._ He means _please help me_. The words queue up on his tongue but after all this time it still feels like a fatal loss of control to let them out.

“If you’re worried-” Betsy starts.

“I’m not afraid,” Neil cuts her off. It’s not what she said, and it’s not even true anyway. He doesn’t take it back because there’s no point.

“You know that I can’t talk about my patients,” Betsy says, slow and careful. “But I can tell you that the best thing to do for someone who you think is struggling is just to be there. And I think you do a good job of that.”

Neil isn’t going to leave. “That can’t be it.”

“Listen. And ask him what you can do,” Betsy says. It doesn’t sound like a rebuke, but Neil hears it as one anyway. “As someone who cares about him, that’s all you can do. If he needs anything, if he wants to talk - just ask.”

“Okay,” Neil says. He feels like he should know that already. But he can do it. He can ask. “Yeah, okay.”

It’s too simple. He bites his tongue on the _what else what else what else_ that wants to burst out of him because it sounds too desperate.

He can’t afford to get desperate.

He’s been quiet for too long. Betsy says, “You know, you can speak to me any time, Neil. About anything.”

“Thanks,” Neil says, and hangs up.  

* * *

Through the upheaval of the trial, they’ve done their utmost to preserve their routines. That means classes and practices and the little things they do together - particularly, braving the chill on the roof in the deep of winter to be alone with each other. 

Neil, who hasn’t been sleeping right, lets the cold seep into him through his jeans and sips from the bottle of whiskey at a fraction of the rate that Andrew does. The warring sensations work to keep him awake, and keep the insistent burn in his throat at bay.

They’re quiet, but that’s not unusual. They’re that by nature. The smell of smoke and Andrew’s presence within arm’s length is the same as it has been almost every night like this since freshman year.

It’s too normal. Neil feels unbalanced and out of sorts, like the ground is tilting under his feet every time he looks at Andrew’s face and sees the bored and quiet cast of his face.

He can’t decide which is worse - Andrew struggling underneath a steady mask, or Andrew genuinely not caring. That he might not feel anything about standing in front of a jury to explain why the blood on Aaron’s hands is justified, recounting the crimes against him, and that every person he cares about was there to hear it too. That he might not feel anything about any of it, because at some point he’s forgotten how to.

Once upon a time, Neil thought the same about himself, sleeping in an empty house with grief as his quiet bed partner and death on his heels. Now, he can’t seem to stop.

He takes the lighter from between them, turning it in his fingers absently. “You okay?”

Andrew flicks him a look. “Why do you ask.”

 _Because I care about you. Because I’m afraid of the answer._  “Humour me.”

“I would say I’m fine, but I know you’ve got the phrase trademarked,” Andrew replies. 

Neil breathes out, slow. “Are you sure?”

Andrew’s brow arches slightly. “I think you’re getting the two of us confused. It’s you who insists that they’re okay when they aren’t.”

“I just,” Neil begins. “I don’t know how you can be. With the - with the trial, with everything-”

 _I’m afraid of the answer._  He’s not sure that was the right thing to say. He can taste the fear like blood at the back of his mouth.

“Don’t you?” There’s the barest trace of amusement in Andrew’s voice. “Are you sure about that?”

Neil stares back at him, without a reply. 

“The trial? Aaron? Anyone with the last name Spear? None of that matters,” he goes on. “It doesn’t matter, and I don’t care.”

“I don’t believe you,” comes out before Neil can stop it. He thinks _show me something_.

Andrew’s head tilts. His face is stone. “No one ever does.”

“No, I…that’s not what I mean,” Neil says. “You’re always the one who’s strong. But you don’t have to be.” 

“That’s debatable,” Andrew replies. “Considering the whimpering from the rest of you, I’m not sure I agree. But that’s also not what this is.”

“You’ve said that you don’t care before, and that was a lie,” Neil reminds him. Andrew’s shoulders stiffen just enough that he sees it happen, which is almost enough to make him pause.

The look he gets is evaluating. “Is that what this is about?”

His tone is a warning. Neil says, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Give it some time. You might figure it out. But I’m not interested in making you believe me,” Andrew says, flicking his cigarette over the edge of the roof. He gets his foot underneath him and stands, which puts him at a height advantage seeing as Neil isn’t sure he’s steady enough to do the same. 

Neil doesn’t want him to go. He feels like he’s digging himself a hole, but he can’t stop. He says, “I’ve been dreaming about it.”

Andrew doesn’t leave. He also doesn’t speak. Into the trap of the silence, Neil continues, “About him, in Columbia. Except we’re not fast enough this time.”

It’s been every night. He hasn’t dreamed like this since before his father died, all blood and fear and the terrible sensation of being too late. It’s not the first time he’s felt like that, but it’s worse in the remembering, twisted by his tricky subconscious.

“About Drake?” Andrew says. The name is a shockwave. Neil’s breath catches. “You have a good imagination. But it’s not as good as my memory. And for someone who seems desperate to know how I feel, you seem awfully concerned about how _you_ feel.”

“That’s not it,” Neil tries. He’s losing Andrew - he’s turned away towards the door. The line of his back is unbent and impenetrable. “I just don’t want to think that you’re pretending to be okay for our benefit.”

“That sounds like your problem,” Andrew says without looking back. “You might want to look into some therapy for it.”

The door slams behind him, leaving Neil huddled on the edge of the roof with the lighter curled into his fist and his heart choking him.

 _For someone who seems desperate to know how I feel, you seem awfully concerned about how_ you _feel._

He thinks of Betsy saying _listen._ And _ask him_. And he thinks, _fuck_.


	30. Drowning

Years later, touch gets easier. Even frightened, and at night. Even hand-in-hand with pain. Even after sex.

They kiss and kiss and kiss afterwards, still, until Neil swears he’ll never feel anything else except Andrew’s mouth. It’s the two of them, coming down together in the dimness with that gentle assurance that it’s them, just them.

That’s not new - it’s an old habit, put in place during the days where Andrew could go from here-and-now-with-Neil to _back there_ in a moment, in a blink. Newer is them not breaking apart, instead staying as close and bare as exposed nerves without replacing their armour of clothes.

This isn’t a fight anymore, inside or out. The press of naked skin between them is the proof of that. Like everything else about Andrew, it’s far more than Neil ever hoped for, and he would burn everything else to the ground to maintain the privilege.

Neil chose this apartment because of the wide window in the bedroom that looks out over the city skyline. They set the bed up against it, which is sometimes cold in winter but always blissful in summer. 

Right now it’s cracked to let in a seep of autumn night air and sound from the street below. Once they’re done with their lazy clean-up, Andrew pushes it wide and lights a cigarette from the pack on the sill. He’s half-silhouette against the refracting orange of the clouds, back to the bedhead. Neil, still sprawled across the mattress, gets only a whiff of the smoke before it’s whisked away by the wind. His anchor is the press of Andrew’s thigh into his side instead.

He feels soft and satisfied and safe, things that are familiar with years. He’ll never forget how to be shattered glass and the keen edge of a knife inside, but time is smoothing some of that jaggedness to something less inclined to cut. He’s never asked Andrew if it’s the same for him, but he sees it sometimes in a hand stroking the arched fuzzy spine of their cats, in arms holding Aaron and Katelyn’s kids, and here, with Andrew’s fingers curling into the damp tangle of Neil’s hair over the sheets.

“I need to get it cut,” he muses, because it’s the awkward length between too-long-to-hold-back-with-a-bandana and too-short-to-tie-properly. 

“Mm.” It sounds non-committal from Andrew, who is anything but. Neil turns his head - he’s lying four inches below the pillows on his belly, his feet tucked over the end of the bed - to look at him properly.

“What, no opinion?” he asks, with a teasing edge.

“No opinion,” Andrew confirms. “Do what you want.”

“Doesn’t sound like the Andrew Minyard I know,” Neil comments. “Hm?”

Andrew casts him a glance at last where he’s hovering his hand over Andrew’s knee. “Fine.”

Neil curls his palm into the crook of it, where it’s hot and a little sweat-damp still. “I seem to remember you having pretty strong opinions about my hair in the past.”

That’s not quite true. Andrew likes the burr of it freshly buzzed at the back of his scalp, all prickly-soft, and the fall of it long on top. He’s never told Neil as much, though - it’s just obvious, from his eyes and hands and the way they both play over it.

Andrew tugs on the curls his fingers are wound into. “If you cut it, you might be able to see well enough to score on me at practice.”

“I’m not sure if that’s encouragement or not,” Neil replies, bussing a kiss against the outside of Andrew’s thigh just because he can. Every time they face each other on the court, it’s a competition. Neil doesn’t play as well against any other goalie - then again, he doesn’t need to for them to win.

Andrew takes another drag of his cigarette, gaze turned back to the window. “Go to sleep.”

“I’m not tired,” Neil lies. Even by their standards, it’s late, and this slow post-sex moment is soporific. He shivers against the creeping chill from the window, pushing himself closer to Andrew to absorb his body heat.

“Leech,” Andrew observes, but says nothing else as Neil rolls full-length against him, face coming to rest against the outside of his hip. 

“Accurate,” Neil says into his skin. It’s second nature now to make his touch firm, not hard but not too light either, especially in the tricky ticklish spots that can so easily turn trigger. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Andrew replies, easily enough, ashing into the dish on the sill for that purpose. Absent as he sounds, the careful tracery of the scars on Neil’s arm where it hangs over his thigh proves his presence. 

He won’t sleep for a while. That’s normal - he said once it gives him a chance to separate sex from sleep, when his subconscious twists things too easily. It’s normal. Everything about this moment is. Neil’s mouth curves a little bit, and he knows Andrew can feel it but he doesn’t stop even as his eyes slide closed.

Andrew might not be ready to sleep yet, but that doesn’t mean Neil can’t. He’s warm now, and comfortable, and the slow wash of lethargy slides over his head like the ocean might.

Neil’s never swum in the sea, but he thinks he knows what drowning would feel like. Sleep and love are both waves that have swallowed him. The only difference is he can lie there breathing deep and not choke on either of them like he would water.

“I thought you weren’t tired,” Andrew mutters, cutting through Neil’s drowse a little. It’s not a protest. If it were, he’d be pushing Neil away, not dragging up the duvet to cover them both with a puff of displaced cotton and air.

“You know I’m a liar,” Neil murmurs back, or maybe just thinks, before he’s asleep.


	31. Exception

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: neil being pissed w/ his tongue untied + "Out of all the people, why the hell would you think Andrew and I would be violent towards each other?"
> 
> Warning: discussion of domestic abuse, recounted abuse between parents - no actual abuse between the main pairing.

It starts with a bruise.

To be precise, it starts with a hickey - one too high on Neil’s throat to be hidden by his shirt.

He’s a marked man, but the kind of marks Andrew leaves on him are different. They’re the sort he doesn’t have to look away from in the mirror, the kind he can press his fingers to and feel the ache without attendant memories of real and frightening pain. They’re reminders of pleasure, pure, not quite simple but as close as the two of them ever get.

They’re past the point of avoiding them, these days. They’ve evolved a little past careful discussion, too - Neil can say, _yeah, like that, I want it, I want you_ , and have it mean _yes, I consent_. And Andrew can trust that.

Careful isn’t something they’ll ever grow out of entirely, but there’s room there to stretch.

The Foxes live in close quarters, so it’s tricky to hide everything - kiss-swollen mouths, delicately discoloured finger-and-thumb marks on hips, traceries of scratches nowhere near deep enough to draw blood on backs, and the aforementioned hickeys. Neil tries - he’s a long, long way from shameless - but he also doesn’t want to put them on the same level as the scars he hid to stay alive for all those years.

Neil unbruised is a rarity, anyway. He plays hard on the court, in games and in practice, and Exy isn’t the kind of sport where you can walk away without a mark. He also has Andrew intent on teaching him a few more methods of protecting himself, with rare and precious determination. Neil repays that in spades, but there are consequences.

Andrew looks at him after one bout, Neil panting and sporting forearms that will look faintly blue and green tomorrow, and says, “I thought you were a faster learner than this.”

“No you didn’t,” Neil tells him. “I’m trying.”

“Try harder,” Andrew recommends. It’s not until later that Neil notices how he avoids those marks on his arms, and resolves to improve.

Neil doesn’t think much of it, other than that. It’s not until he sticks his head into Aaron, Matt and Nicky’s room to ask if Matt has seen his spare pair of gloves that it even occurs to him that someone else might.

The three boys are sprawled across the furniture. Neil feels a tiny burst of affection at the sight of them so relaxed together. It fades when Nicky cranes to see if there’s anyone standing behind Neil, and says, “Are you by yourself? Get in here.”

Neil steps inside the door and closes it behind himself without a question, puzzled but not suspicious. Andrew and Kevin are waiting in the car for him to locate his missing gear, Kevin probably still huffing about being ‘late’ while Andrew smokes and ignores him.

Matt and Nicky both shift in their seats, exchanging a quick look. Aaron is the only one who doesn’t move, his focus on the muted television still. 

“Hey,” Nicky starts, brow furrowed. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Neil says automatically, and then, “With what?”

Nicky opens his mouth, but it’s Matt who says, “With Andrew.”

“It’s fine?” It comes out like a question, but mostly because Neil is now openly confused. He clears his throat. “It’s fine. Good.”

He and Matt have had this conversation before, but it wasn’t like this - they’d both been drinking, and talking under the cover of blaring music. Then, Matt had looked amused. Right now, he looks deadly serious, in a way that he rarely does.

Nicky, meanwhile, looks nervous. He does when discussing Andrew even now, but Neil supposes he has a reason to. He knows Andrew cares about Nicky, but he’s not kind with it. Nicky is the sort to flourish with kindness and wilt with cruelty - that’s why it’s impressive that he stuck out the twins as teenagers. It’s also one of the reasons Neil likes him: his devotion to draw blood out of stones.

Right now, he wonders if he’s the stone. Especially when Nicky says, “Are you sure?”

Neil frowns. “Why?”

“Because - because of that,” Nicky says, pointing. Neil reaches a hand to his own throat, and then remembers there’s the edge of a mark there, purple and indistinct. Nearly covered, but not quite. He feels his ears heat with a blush.

“What about it?” 

“You’ve had a lot of them recently,” Nicky says. “Bruises. Everywhere. Sorry, but it’s kind of hard not to notice. I thought I got used to them back in your first year, but apparently not so much.”

“I always have bruises,” Neil points out stupidly. Both Nicky and Matt are staring at him like they’re waiting for him to get it. That’s not particularly unusual, but it’s generally a source of amusement for the other Foxes. Right now, they’re the furtherest thing from amused.

“They think my brother is beating the shit out of you,” Aaron says, bored, and Neil could swear the floor tilts under his feet.

He thinks about his father backhanding his mother, bloodying her mouth - Mary Hatford, a queen in her own right, brought low by the Butcher’s hideous temper and utter disregard for her. They are nothing like that, _nothing,_ but the implication turns his stomach anyway.

“Why the hell would you think Andrew and I would be violent towards each other?” he demands. “Don’t you think we’ve both had enough of that?”

Their faces say _it’s not Andrew we’re worried about_. And Neil has known for a long time what the Foxes think of Andrew, what they’re willing to believe about him, but he never really thought he’d hear it like this.

He waits for one of them to say _oh no, you don’t understand_ , and then explain themselves. None of them do.

And just like that, the taste of bile in his mouth turns coppery. “He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Do you think no one ever says that and believes it,” says Aaron coolly, without looking up, “Even when it’s not true? People justify getting hurt all the time, if they love the person enough.”

“You would know.” The words come out sharp as the report of a firing gun, _rat-tat-tat_. Aaron Minyard loved his mother. Neil doesn’t understand why he’s here, saying something that doesn’t apply at all to Andrew and Neil. 

He finally turns to glance at Neil. He looks for an instant like his brother, flat-eyed and bored. It’s an affectation in a way that Andrew’s expression isn’t, blankness pasted on over his reaction. He says, “You’re right.”

“We’re just worried about you,” Matt cuts in. He sounds calm, a furrow between his eyebrows as he watches Neil. “Both of you.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Neil says, staccato. “Whatever you’re thinking, you’re wrong, and you need to stop.”

“Okay, alright,” Nicky says, placating, his hands up. “We’re just making sure. It’s our job to worry about you, right? We’re family.”

Neil considers saying _I asked for them_. Then he remembers his mother saying _don’t make him angry_ and thinks it might sound like someone saying _it’s my fault_. Maybe he shouldn’t feel like this when they’re just trying to protect him - even Aaron, in his sour way - but he doesn’t owe them all of his and Andrew’s secrets. 

He can’t tell from their faces whether or not they believe him. That makes it worse.

“I’m guessing you haven’t bought this up with Andrew,” Neil says. His voice has taken on a lilt, almost teasing. It sounds familiar, but he can’t place it. “I suppose you thought he didn’t need the same warning as I do.”

“No,” Nicky says. “No, we-”

“Don’t,” Neil says. “You won’t like it if you do.”

It comes out pretty, like a joke, said on a huff of a laugh. Amusement, or a seeming of it, shown as a lie only by the words themselves and whatever expression is in his eyes over the smirk. 

It comes out like it would from his father’s mouth. That’s why it’s familiar. Wesninskis are at their most dangerous when they smile.

He doesn’t slam the door behind him when he leaves. Andrew is waiting in the hall, leaning against the far wall in a slouch which everyone mistakes for insolent.

Neil walks straight past him down the hall. Andrew catches up in time to get into the same elevator car, and they ride down in silence. 

Kevin is waiting in the passenger seat of the Maserati, and he scowls at Neil when they approach. “What the hell took you so-”

The crash of Neil’s door slamming closed cuts him off completely. Kevin jerks, and then for an extended moment they sit in total silence.

Andrew, who has his door open but hasn’t got into the car yet, leans down to look between the front seats at Neil. After a moment where Neil won’t look back at him, he says, “Kevin. Practice tonight is cancelled. Go away.”

Kevin starts to protest, turns to look at Neil, and then stops. Being readable to Kevin is a good reason to get control of himself, but right now Neil doesn’t care to. When he makes to undo his seatbelt again, Andrew says, “Not you.”

Kevin gets out of the car. Andrew gets into it and starts the engine, pulling out of the parking lot. He turns off campus and onto the backroads around Palmetto, a roundabout route towards the highway where there are no cops to see his flagrant breaking of the speed limit.

He heard. There’s no way he wouldn’t have, to have sent Kevin away. Neil curls his fingers into fists and waits in the thrumming silence for him to say something. 

Eventually, he says, “Do you think I don’t know what they think of me?” 

“No,” Neil replies. _Monster_. The upperclassmen still call him that, and it’s more than a habit. They mean it. Neil doesn’t often correct them, but now he doesn’t think he can hear that word again without breaking something.

“Then you know it’s a waste of time to get angry over it.” Andrew sounds careless, not resigned. That’s because he doesn’t care. Neil isn’t the same - he’s boiling inside, pressure behind his eyes and in his chest like his rage might blind and choke him with its power.

“When they accuse you of hurting me, I’ll get as angry as I fucking like,” he snarls back. He’s sick and tired of resignation, and he’s never been capable of carelessness.

“They think I’ll hurt anyone,” Andrew replies. “Did you think that you would be an exception to that belief?”

“I am an exception.”

It’s true. In every way, he’s an exception to Andrew’s rules - except for the ways where he’s only really an exception in terms of the people in Andrew’s life. Andrew edges him a look in the rearview mirror, the blue glow from the dashboard barely illuminating the impatient set of his jaw.

Neil told him once that he’d fight for him. He meant it. Whether or not Andrew thinks it’s necessary, he will, because he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t.

Andrew doesn’t disagree with him, which is as good as an agreement. Instead, he pulls over onto the side of the road in a spray of gravel, without indicating. There’s no one else out here, but Neil learned to drive according to the actual laws - mostly to avoid suspicion, but still - and winces anyway.

When they come to a stop in a billowing cloud of silver-lit dust, Andrew says, “I am not your chauffeur.”

Rolling his eyes, Neil climbs out of the back and into the front seat. “Happy now?”

“I have no interest in talking you down from a temper tantrum,” Andrew replies, even though that isn’t an answer, and isn’t even true. As always, he’s here. As always, that alone is enough. 

“That works, because I’m not interested in being talked down,” Neil tells him. Him being there is enough, but his touch is what has Neil swallowing the last of the taste of blood in his mouth. When they kiss, it’s the same old thing he’d kill for. 


End file.
